THE celebrated antiquity of Stonehenge, as also that stupendious but unheeded antiquity at Aubury, &c. I affirme to have been temples, and built by the Britons. See my Templa Druidum. [The essay referred to was a part of Aubrey’s Monumenta Britannica, the manuscript of which has strangely disappeared within the last twenty yeares. I have given an account of its contents in the Memoir of Aubrey, already frequently referred to,(page 87). Aubrey was the first who asserted that Avebury and Stonehenge were temples of the Britons. He was also the first person who wrote any thing about the forms, styles, and varieties of windows, arches, &c. in Church Architecture, and his remarks and opinions on both subjects were judicious, curious, and original.—J. B.] Here being so much good stone in this countrey, no doubt but that the Romans had here, as well as in other parts, good buildings. But time hath left us no vestigia of their architecture unlesse that little that remains of the castle of Old Sarum, where the mortar is as hard as a stone. This must have been a most august structure, for it is situated upon a hill. When the high walles were standing, flanked at due distances with towers, about seven in all, and the vast keep (arx) in the middle crowned with another high fortification, it must needs afford a most noble view over the plaines. (The following account I had from the right reverend, learned, and industrious Seth Ward, Lord Bishop of Sarum, who had taken the paines to peruse all the old records of the church, that had been clung together and untoucht for perhaps two hundred yeares.) Within this castle of Old Sarum, on the east side, stood the Cathedrall church; the tuft and scite is yet discernable: which being seated so high was so obnoxious to the weather, that when the wind did blow they could not heare the priest say masse. But this was not the only inconvenience. The soldiers of the castle and the priests could never agree; and one day, when they were gone without the castle in procession, the soldiers kept them out all night, or longer. Whereupon the Bishop, being much troubled, cheered them up as well as he could, and told them he would study to accommodate them better. In order thereunto he rode severall times to the Lady Abbesse at Wilton to have bought or exchanged a piece of ground of her ladyship to build a church and houses for the priests. A poor woman at Quidhampton, that was spinning in the street, sayd to one of her neighbours, “I marvell what the matter is that the bishop makes so many visits to my lady; I trow he intends to marry her.” Well, the bishop and her ladyship did not conclude about the land, and the bishop dreamt that the Virgin Mary came to him, and brought him to or told him of Merrifield; she would have him build his church there and dedicate it to her. Merrifield was a great field or meadow where the city of New Sarum stands, and did belong to the Bishop, as now the whole city belongs to him.