Silbury's little sister's makeover

The current works, pictured, are phase three of the tree removal on what is the second largest prehistoric mound in Britain.

Over the last few years, the College has begun to remove excess vegetation from the slopes and has planted over 1000 new hedge plants which will grow around the spiral path to the top

The Marlborough mound had been thought to date back to Norman times.

It was believed to be the base of a castle built 50 years after the Norman invasion and later landscaped as a 17th-century garden feature.

But it has been dated to around 2400BC from four samples of charcoal taken from the core of the 19 metre-high hill.

The samples prove it was built at a time when British tribes were combining labour on ritual monuments in the chalk downlands of Wiltshire, including Stonehenge and the huge ditches and stone circle of Avebury.