Just north of Winchester, in the south of England, the A34 cuts through a group of Bronze Age barrows or burial mounds. The small grassy heaps sit on each side of the busy duel carriageway, so close to the traffic that the tussocky edge of one of these structures seems to be shaved by the road surface. Travelling at speed, the majority of road users may not notice these man made bumps in the landscape, and if they do, they are unlikely to connect them to the ancient burial practices of which they are evidence. The proximity of the road to these earth works – the uncomfortable montage of tarmac and grass – reveals something of the complex relationship between speed and stillness, non-place and place and the felt experience of certain forms of rural modernity.