A sentimental & practical guide to Amesbury and Stonehenge

Transcribed from the 1908? edition, by David Price.
DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER GEORGINA ALICIA SARTORIS
TENTH THOUSAND
ESTATE OFFICE: AMESBURY, WILTS
In compiling this little Guide Book, I have somewhat departed from the ordinary lines, but I venture to hope that the traveller to Amesbury and Stonehenge will not like it the worse on that account. I am much indebted to the kindness of Mrs. Gordon and of Messrs. Murray, Barclay, Story Maskelyne, and Hewitt, for allowing me to quote from their works, also to the Editor of the Ladies’ Realm , for permission to use an article by me which appeared in the February number of that magazine, and, above all, to Miss Clarisse Miles, for the charming photographs which illustrate my book.
Florence Caroline Mathilde Antrobus.
Amesbury Abbey , Salisbury , 1900.
Leaving Salisbury by what is called the “Upper Road” to Amesbury, one travels across a tract of bleak and rather uninteresting downs. About two miles from Salisbury (on the left) Old Sarum stands up conspicuously, and is the only object of interest till one arrives at Amesbury, eight miles distant from Salisbury. Amesbury calls itself a town, and boasts of several shops and the telegraph. A railway station is in process of construction. In Aubrey’s times Amesbury was celebrated for its tobacco pipes, marked with a gauntlet, the name of the maker. Of these, several specimens are to be found in the museum at Salisbury.
Returning to Salisbury from Amesbury, and taking “the Bourne” route, there is a beautiful drive winding along the banks of the Avon. I give a short account of the most interesting places the traveller meets with on his homeward journey.
Lies two miles from Salisbury, and stands up, making a bold outline in the surrounding open country. It is a hill, bare now, save for some trees, encircled with entrenchments, with a central mound peering above them. But centuries ago this spot was crowded with buildings—religious, military, and domestic, and was one of the most important in our island. Some say that the ancient British name was Caer Sarflag , the “City of the Service Tree.” Its Roman name was Sorbiodunun , the Saxon Sarobyrig . The face of the hill is smooth and very steep. The summit is fenced by a mighty earthen rampart and ditch, protected by a lower raised bank outside of it, the height from the top of the one to the bottom of the other being 106 feet. The surface of the hill is an elongated circular area of 27½ acres. In the centre of the area is a second circular earthwork and ditch 100 feet high, and within these stood the citadel. On the top of the earthwork surrounding the citadel was a very strong wall 12 feet thick, of flint embedded in rubble, and coated with square stones, of which some portion remain. To the great outer earthwork there were two entrances—one (guarded by a hornwork still remaining) on the western, another (the postern) on the eastern side. The site of the citadel is now overgrown with briers and brushwood; the rest of the area is partly in a state of nature, partly cultivated. “Celt and Roman alike had seen the military value of the height from which the eye sweeps nowadays over the grassy meadows of the Avon to the arrowy spire of Salisbury; and, admirable as the position was in itself, it had been strengthened at a vast cost of labour. The camp on the summit of the knoll was girt in by a trench hewn so deeply in the chalk that, from the inner side of it, the white face of the rampart rose 100 feet high, while strong outworks protected the approaches to the fortress from the west and from the east.”