Mysterious tombs, a ghostly chieftain, hidden treasure and a headless horseman: it must be Halloween

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'Ghosts are memories with a stubborn will to survive; their haunting is a refusal to be forgotten. Ageing objects carry with them an accumulated charge of significance, with the potential to unleash visitations from the past'.

(Rob Young, Electric Eden) The curiously named Knocking Knoll is a round barrow (burial mound), dating from the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age period (c2400 to 1500 years BC). It is marked on the local Ordnance Survey (OS) map as a 'long barrow', but with the risk of sounding just a little bit picky, experts now think that this is actually incorrect.

But whatever type of barrow it is, the place still swirls with myth and legend and its lofty position, high on the hills above both Pegsdon and Pirton, means that Knocking Knoll commands attention from afar and has drawn the gaze of curious passers-by for thousands of years.

Me included. In 'Albion', her seminal guide to legendary Britain, the author Jennifer Westwood talks of Knocking Knoll housing the remains of an ancient British chieftain and there is mention of his curious nocturnal habits: on some nights you can hear him knocking from deep inside his tomb, which is him either checking his treasure or as others say, simply asking to be let out. There are always just three knocks.

I am sad to say that this tale may have more prosaic roots as the ancient British word (and modern Welsh word) for a mound or a small hillock is cnycyn, pronounced 'knkn'. From this one can easily imagine how the above story may have come to life. As Jennifer Westwood also observed: 'here we seem to see local rumour hardening into fact, thence passing into legend'. I am secretly hoping that there is truth on both sides of the debate, both the facts and the myth, and as Knocking Knoll has existed thousands of years and will outlive us all, I hope people are still talking of the chieftain and his treasure in centuries to come. And before we move on, an old name for Knocking Knoll was 'Money Knoll' - now where did that come from?

There are approximately ten thousand of these burial mounds in the UK and they are thought to mark the final resting place of those of higher social status, possibly including this chieftain who still stands sentinel over his mythical fortune. Excavations at other mounds have indicated that some may have even contained more than one burial. As you would expect, many have been excavated and even more plundered previously by grave robbers.

Archaeologists rarely find actual treasure per se, but it is often the more apparently insignificant finds that enable us to visualise a picture of life in Britain well before any reliable records were kept.

Knocking Knoll itself was formally excavated in the 1700s by the renowned antiquarian William Stukeley (1687-1765) and in 1865 by Hitchin's own William Ransom. Some artefacts originating from this latter dig were deposited with Hitchin Museum. The mound is visible as you climb out of Pirton on Wood Lane and it can be best seen on the horizon to your right just after the small wood halfway up the hill.

As it is now on private land you will need to admire it from a distance, but who knows, the ghostly knocking may be audible from the track itself this Halloween. Only half a kilometre away there is another un-named burial mound in Tingley Field Plantation at the top of Wood Lane, and this is too is marked on local OS maps.

And as you approach it take a look through the gap in the hedge on your right, as the far-reaching view is superb and there in the mid distance is Knocking Knoll from a different, and some say, even better angle.

And finally, and talking of ghosts, the ancient restless warrior of Knocking Knoll is not the only spectre that apparently stalks these hills… Just one kilometre away to the south east of Knocking Knoll is the historic High Down House, still occupied and marked on the map today, such is its antiquity and importance.

During the English civil war legend tells of a cavalier who was forced to hide in a nearby elm tree whilst fleeing from a group of roundheads. Unfortunately for our royalist friend he was soon found and put to the sword by his pursuers, the cold-blooded murder being witnessed by his wife who watched from a window in the nearby house.

And now, on every June 15, his headless ghost, now mounted on a phantom horse, charges down the hill and on towards Hitchin so that he can be re-united with his grief-stricken wife who still waits patiently for her love within the walls of the town's Priory.

But you'll have to come back in the summer to see this one.

So, restless spirits refusing to be forgotten and ageing objects unleashing visitations from the past.

Oh, and beautiful year-round scenery and a couple of handy pubs, too. Sounds like the perfect autumn walk to me.

Happy Halloween!

Sparky