"The numerous circles of stone or of earth in Britain and Ireland, varying in diameter from 30 or 40 feet up to 1,200, are to be viewed as temples standing in the closest possible relation to the burial-places of the dead. The most imposing group of remains of this kind in this country [England] is that of Avebury [Abury], near Devizes, in Wiltshire, referred by Sir John Lubbock to a late stage in the Neolithic or to the beginning of the bronze period. It consists of a large circle of unworked upright stones 1,200 feet in diameter, surrounded by a fosse, which in turn is also surrounded by a rampart of earth. Inside are the remains of two concentric circles of stone, and from the two entrances in the rampart proceeded long avenues flanked by stones, one leading to Beckhampton, and the other to West Kennett, where it formerly ended in another double circle. Between them rises Silbury Hill, the largest artificial mound in Great Britain, no less than 130 feet in height. This group of remains was at one time second to none, 'but unfortunately for us [says Sir John Lubbock] the pretty little village of Avebury [Abury], like some beautiful parasite, has grown up at the expense and in the midst of the ancient temple, and out of 650 great stones, not above twenty are still standing. In spite of this it is still to be classed among the finest ruins in Europe. The famous temple of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain is probably of a later date than Avebury, since not only are some of the stones used in its construction worked, but the surrounding barrows are more elaborate than those in the neighbourhood of the latter. It consisted of a circle 100 feet in diameter, of large upright blocks of sarsen stone, 12 feet 7 inches high, bearing imposts dovetailed into each other, so as to form a continuous architrave. Nine feet within this was a circle of small foreign stones … and within this five great trilithons of sarsen stone, forming a horse-shoe; then a horse-shoe of foreign stones, eight feet high, and in the centre a slab of micaceous sandstone called the altar-stone. … At a distance of 100 feet from the outer line a small ramp, with a ditch outside, formed the outer circle, 300 feet in diameter, which cuts a low barrow and includes another, and therefore is evidently of later date than some of the barrows of the district." _W. B. Dawkins; Early Man in Britain, chapter 10._