LONG MEG.
Mr. Patten and I went to view that famous monument of antiquity called Long Meg and her Daughters, in the parish of Addingham, between Little Salkeld and Glasenby. It stands upon a barren elevated plain of high ground, under the vast hill called Cross-fell, to the east. This plain declines to the east gently, or rather north-east, for that I find to be the principal line observed by the founders. It is a great Celtic temple, being a circle of 300 foot diameter, consisting of 100 stones: they are of unequal bulk; some are of very large dimensions: many are standing, but more fallen, and several carried away; but lately they have destroyed some by blasting, as they call it, i. e. blowing them in pieces with gunpowder; others they have sawed for mill-stones: but the major part remaining, gives one a just idea of the whole; and it is a most noble work. The stones are not all of the same kind; some made of square crystallisations, of the same sort as those at Shap; and I saw many of that sort of stone scattered about the country; others of the blue, hard, flaky sort, like those of the temple at Mayborough. The intervals are not exactly equal, but judiciously adapted to the bulks of the stones, to preserve as much as possible a regular appearance. This large ring, thus declining north-east, is now parted through by a ditch; so that the larger half lies in an inclosure, the other in a common; and the road lies by the side of it, that goes from Little Salkeld to Glasenby. South-west from it, seventy foot, stands a very great and high stone, called Long Meg, of a reddish girt, seeming to have been taken from the side of some quarry of the country: I think it leans a little north-east: it is about fifteen foot high. In the middle of the circle are two roundish plots of ground, of a different colour from the rest apparently, and more stony and barren; which probably were the immediate places of burning the sacrifices, or the like. Not far hence toward Glasenby is a very fine spring; whence, no doubt, they had the element of water, used at their religious solemnities: and higher up the field is a large spring, intrenched about with a vallum and foss, of a pretty great circumference, but no depth. Full south-west from this work, in the next inclosure and higher ground, is another circle of lesser stones, in number twenty: the circle is fifty foot diameter; and at some distance above it is another stone placed, regarding it, as Meg does the larger circle. In that part of the greater circle next the single stone called Meg, are two stones standing beyond the circle a little, and another fallen; which I believe were a sort of sacellum, perhaps for the pontifex to officiate in: and westward is another stone or two, perhaps of a like work; but the ruinous condition of the work would not admit of any certainty about it.