We leave Bradford-on-Avon for Marlborough over a fine though rather undulating road. We pause at Devizes to read the astonishing inscription on the town cross:
“The mayor and corporation of Devizes avail themselves of the stability of this building to transmit to future times the record of an awful event which occurred in this market place in the year 1753, hoping that such record may serve as a salutary warning against the danger of impiously invoking Divine vengeance or calling on the holy name of God to conceal the devices of falsehood and fraud. On Thursday, the 17th of January 1753, Ruth Pierce of Pottern in this county agreed with three other women to buy a sack of wheat in the market, each paying her due proportion towards the same. One of these women collecting the several quotas of money, discovered a deficiency and demanded of Ruth Pierce what was wanting to make good the amount. Ruth Pierce protested that she had paid her share and said she wished she might drop down dead if she had not. She rashly repeated this awful wish, when, to the consternation and terror of the surrounding multitude, she instantly fell down and expired, having the money concealed in her hand.”
Surely the citizens of Devizes, with such a warning staring them in the face every day, must be exemplary disciples of George Washington—and what a discouraging place the town would be for the headquarters of an American trust!
The town gets its name from having been a division camp back in Roman days. It figured much in the civil war, its castle, of which no traces now remain, holding out for the king until taken by Cromwell in person. There are in the town two of the finest churches in Wiltshire, second only to Salisbury Cathedral. Nor is it to be forgotten that the parents of Sir Thomas Lawrence were at one time keepers of the Bear Inn at Devizes, and the son acquired his first fame by sketching the guests and reciting poetry to them. He lived here until eighteen years of age, when he entered the Royal Academy at London.
It was a surprise to find at Avebury, a lonely village a few miles farther on, relics of a pre-historic stone circle that completely dwarf the giants of Stonehenge. This great circle was about three-quarters of a mile in circumference and three hundred years ago was nearly perfect. The mighty relics were destroyed by the unsentimental vandals of the neighborhood, and it is said that most of the cottages in the village were built from these stones. Some of them were buried to clear the land of them! Barely a dozen remain of more than six hundred monoliths that stood in the circle as late as the reign of Elizabeth; and the destruction ceased only fifty years ago. The stones are ruder and less symmetrical than those of Stonehenge, but their individual bulk averages greater—mighty fragments of rock weighing from fifty to sixty tons each. The Avebury circle is supposed to have been a temple of prehistoric sun worshipers, but its crudity indicates that it is far older than Stonehenge.
A short run across the downs soon brought us to Marlborough, a name more familiar as that of a dukedom than of a town. But the Duke of Marlborough lives at Blenheim, forty miles away, and has no connection with the Wiltshire town. Its vicissitudes were those of almost any of the older English towns, though it had the rare distinction of having its castle destroyed before the time of Cromwell. It has little of great antiquity, since a fire two hundred and fifty years ago totally wiped out the town that then existed. In the coaching days, it was an important point on the London and Bath road; and perhaps the motor car may bring back something of its old-time prosperity. The Ailesbury Arms, where we stopped for our belated lunch, appeared to be a most excellent hotel and is the only one I recollect which had a colored man in uniform at the door.
Immediately adjoining Marlborough is Savernake Forest, on the estate of the Marquis of Ailesbury, which is said to be the only forest of any extent possessed by a subject. This park is sixteen miles in circumference, and its chief glory is a straight four-mile drive between rows of enormous beeches. This splendid avenue is not “closed to motors” (the inscription that greeted us at the entrance of so many private parks), and our car carried us soberly enough through the sylvan scene, which is diversified with many grassy glades. There are several famous trees, one of which, the King’s Oak, is twenty-four feet in circumference. Savernake is pleasant and impressive in summer time, but its real beauty must be most apparent in autumn, when, as an English writer describes it, “it is a blaze of crimson and yellow—the long shadows and golden sunlight giving the scene a painted, almost too brilliant effect.”
It is growing late and we must not loiter longer by the way if we are to reach Bournemouth for the night. We sweep across the great open Salisbury Plain past Stonehenge and down the sweet vale of the Avon until the majestic spire of Salisbury pierces the sky. Then southward through Ringwood to Christchurch, where we catch a glimpse of the scant fragments of the castle and the abbey church, with its melancholy memorial to Shelley. A few minutes more on the fine ocean road brings us into Bournemouth.