_Centum ego quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus_, &c. Virg. and probably British chariots had here their courses. On the southern end it is manifest they contrived it just to leave room enough for the turn; and it required good skill to drive a chariot so as not to fall there, or into the river. It must be understood, that the bridge at present, and another of wood formerly a little below it, have impaired the banks by the more southern circle. This is the most delightful place that can be imagined for recreation: the rapid river Louther runs all along the side of it; the Eimot joins it a little way off, in view: beyond is a charming view of a vast wood, and of Brougham castle; beyond that, the ancient Roman city, and the Roman road going along under the high hill whereon is the beacon. But these are things later in time than our antiquity. Though upon first sight of the place I knew its purport, yet I was more fully convinced thereof when I went to see Mayborough, as called, which is a little higher up the hill, on an eminence higher than any near it, and full west from this place, or _circus_: it is a vast concavity, of the same diameter as the circles just mentioned, viz. 300 foot: it is made with an artificial _vallum_ of loose stones, without any ditch, carried with great labour from some other place, and here orderly piled up, so as to make a rampart as high and as broad as that at Abury: in some places the turf, with which it was covered originally, is peeled off: it slopes inward with a gentle descent on account of spectators; outwardly it is as steep as the nature of the materials would suffer, and now covered over with great timber-trees: the entrance is wide, and opens full east, and to the _circus_. Within this fine plain, which is now ploughed up, have been two circles of huge stones; four remaining of the inner circle till a year or two ago, that they were blown to pieces with gunpowder: they were of a hard black kind of stone, like that of the altar at Stonehenge: one now stands, ten foot high, seventeen in circumference, of a good shapely kind; another lies along: this inner circle was fifty foot in diameter. One stone, at least, of the outer circle remains, by the edge of the corn; and some more lie at the entrance within side, others without, and fragments all about. Just by the entrance, along the road runs a spring, full eastward.