The town consists of three streets; the principal one |is wide and modern, and it has a small neat church. Its chief |manufactures are druggets, serges, and a variety of worsted goods; |in the neighbourhood are several hop plantations. The market is on |Saturday, and the parish contains 375 houses, and 2026 |inhabitants. | 48|Alton Buffs, Hants, 82. | 122|Alvington, Somerset, 141. | 78|=Amesbury=, Wilts, 161. A market town and parish, pleasantly |situated in an open country on the river Avon; and is of some |antiquity, having the ruins of a venerable abbey. | |The town consists principally of two streets, the church standing |in the intersection. It contains 397 houses, and 2130 inhabitants. |Market on Friday. This place gave birth to the celebrated Mr. |Addison. The neighbourhood produces the best kind of clay for |tobacco pipes, and the river a delicious little fish, called a |loach. Near Amesbury is a Roman camp (_see Vespasian’s Camp_), and |about two miles distant is Stonehenge, which attracts numerous |travellers here. | |The true origin of this stupendous structure yet remains a matter |of doubt; it is a subject on which our antiquarians widely differ |in opinion, but the majority have pronounced it to be the ruins of |a Druidical temple. Seventeen huge stones are now standing, which, |with seven others lying on the ground, form the outward circular, |or oval range: the inward circle is about eight feet from the |outward one, and has eleven stones standing, and eight fallen; |between these two circles is a walk of about three hundred feet in |circumference, the appearance of the whole from which is |singularly awful and surprising. The stones are from eighteen to |twenty feet high, from six to seven broad, and about three feet |thick; round it are numerous barrows, covered with earth, raised |chiefly in the form of a bell. Many of those which have been |opened have contained human skeletons, urns, and military weapons. | |From Stonehenge an avenue about half a mile long, between two |ditches, leads to the Cursus, which is two miles in length, and |enclosed by two ditches, three hundred and fifty feet asunder, |having a bank, or long barrow, at each end. | |Dr. Stukeley fixes the date of the erection of Stonehenge, four |hundred and sixty years before Christ. | 79|Amesbury, Little, Wilts, 161. (_Population included with |Amesbury_) | 70|Amfield, Hants, 85. | 121|Amphitheatre, (commonly called Maumbury) Dorset, 171. This |amphitheatre is allowed to be the most perfect of its kind |remaining in England. It is situated on a plain in the open |fields, and is raised on the solid chalk upon a level; the jambs |at the entrance are somewhat worn away. Half the work is above