The first unequivocal published mention of the Chesnuts Long Barrow was provided by antiquarian Josiah Colebrooke in 1773; he erroneously considered it to be a stone circle, describing it as one of "the temples of the antient [sic] Britons". In 1778 John Thorpe wrongly associated the monument with the ancient druids, and it was not until 1863 that Charles Moore Jessop recognised that the stones had once been part of a chambered tomb.
