In the neighbourhood of Whittlesford there were three tumuli or burial mounds known as the Chronicle Hills or (more descriptively) the Conical Hills. When Ebenezer Hollick, the squire of Whittlesford, levelled the Conical Hills in about 1826, some Roman remains were found, including skeletons. According to a tradition recorded by W. R. Brown in Cambridgeshire Cameos (c. 1895):
There is an amusing story told in the village about one of the skeletons. It was one of two which were discovered in a most remarkable position, showing that they were combatants; one was gripping the other so tightly that even in the grave they were not separated… This particular skeleton was in a sitting posture; one of the venturesome labourers took a fancy to the skull of this warrior, and accordingly dismembered it from the skeleton and carried it home to his cottage. At night, however, up came the headless skeleton to the labourer’s house… Knocking at the door, it demanded restitution of the skull. This occurred night after night, so the gossips say, until the skull was taken back and re-placed.
A more circumstantial version of this tradition was recorded by Enid Porter in 1969 from Mr. J. Maynard of Whittlesford, who said that it was still known to old people in the village. According to Mr. Maynard, the labourer who stole the skull was a man named Matthews, who took it home and placed it on his bedroom mantelpiece. In the middle of the following night, he was woken by a terrific banging on his door, and, putting his head out of the window, saw a headless skeleton standing in the garden below. In a hoarse, sepulchral voice, the skeleton demanded his skull, and Matthews was so terrified that he at once threw it down to him.