It measured full 22 feet long. _Reuben Horsall_, clerk of the parish, a sensible man and lover of antiquity, remembers it standing. And when my late lord _Winchelsea_ (_Heneage_) was here with me, we saw three wooden wedges driven into it, in order to break it in pieces. In the great frontispiece plate, I have noted many dates of years, when such and such stones were demolished, and took down the particulars of all: some are still left buried in the pastures, some in gardens. I was apt to leave this wish behind; _Pro molli viola, pro purpureo narcisso Carduus, & spinis surgat paliurus acutis!_ Virg. The seat of many is visible by the remaining hollow; of others by a hill above the interr’d. Of many then lately carry’d off the places were notorious, by nettles and weeds growing up, and no doubt many are gone since I left the place. But the ground-plot representing the true state of the town and temple, when I frequented it, I spare the reader’s patience in being too particular about it. When this mighty colonnade of 100 of these stones was in perfection, there must have been a most agreeable circular walk, between them and the ditch; and it’s scarce possible for us to form a notion of the grand and beautiful appearance it must then have made. [Illustration: TAB. XII. _A peice of the great circle, or A View at the South Entrance into the temple at Abury Aug. 1722._ _Stukeley delin._] CHAP. V. _Of the two great temples included in the area of the great circle of stones. Each consists of two concentrick circles. One has a central obelisc or ambre, a very high stone in the center. The_ Egyptians _called an obelisc an ambre. The other temple has a cove in the center, compos’d of three stones of a stupendous bulk, set in a nich-like figure. A short history of the destroyers of this noble work, but a very few years ago._ The great circle of stones last described, together with the ditch and rampart inclosing all, may be esteemed as the _præcinctus_ of the temple, not properly the temple; but including the area thereof. There are strictly within this great compass, two temples, of like form and dimensions: each temple consists of two concentric circles. The line that connects their centers, runs from north-west to south-east: which line passes thro’ the center of the whole area. The outer circles of them consist each of 30 stones of like dimensions with those of the outer circle, and at like intervals. The inner circles of both consist each of 12 stones, of the same size and distances. The geometry therefore of them, when laid down on paper, shews, the inner circle must be 100 cubits in diameter, the outer 240.