Abury, A Temple of the British Druids, With Some Others, DescribedStukeley, William
History
Abury, A Temple of the British Druids, With Some Others, Described
Stukeley, William
Avebury (England) -- Antiquities; Druids and Druidism
Mr. _Aubury_ in his manuscript observations publish’d with Mr.
_Camden_’s _Britannia_, speaks of them by the name of the _Devil’s
coits_. Three huge stones then standing. It was really a grand and
noble work. The stone left standing is 16 feet high, as many broad,
3½ thick. The back stone is fallen flat on the ground, of like
dimension.
——_annis solvit sublapsa vetustas:
Fertur in abruptum magnus mons_—— Virg. Æn. 12.
The other was carried off by that destroyer _Richard Fowler_, together
with many more, but seven years ago (when I was there). The people
that saw it broken in pieces by fire, assured me there were perfect
flints in its composition and bones. And I verily believe I saw a piece
of this same stone in a garden-wall of the little alehouse below in
_Bekamton_-road, which had evidently a bone in it. Whence probably we
may conclude, that these stones were form’d by nature since _Noah_’s
deluge, and these bones are of an antediluvian animal, which casually
fell into the petrifying matter. They told me the stone contain’d 20
good loads, that the bones were in the middle of the stone, and as hard
as the stone. That stone now standing, was the right hand or eastern
jamb of the cove.
A little way hence is a bit of heath-ground, but the plough will soon
have devoured it. Here remains a great barrow, call’d _Longstone long
barrow_; and from hence we see innumerable more barrows. The avenue
continu’d its journey by the corn fields. Three stones lie still by
the field-road coming from _South-street_ to the _Caln_-road. Mr.
_Alexander_ told me he remember’d several stones standing by the
parting of the roads under _Bekamton_, demolish’d by _Richard Fowler_.
Then it descends by the road to _Cherill_, ’till it comes to the
_Bath_-road, close by the _Roman_-road, and there in the low valley it
terminates, near a fine group of barrows, under _Cherill-hill_, in the
way to _Oldbury-camp_; this is west of _Bekamton_-village. This point
facing that group of barrows and looking up the hill is a most solemn
and awful place; a descent all the way from _Longstone_ cove, and
directed to a descent, a great way further, down the _Bath_-road, where
no less than five valleys meet. And in this very point only you can see
the temple on _Overton-hill_, on the south side of _Silbury-hill_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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