Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Arbor Low: General View of the Southern Half.

We may, therefore, infer that the builders of Stonehenge were of a race which originally came from the south, and that the monument was erected under the direction of men who had seen or had, at least, been thoroughly instructed in the architecture of the earlier trilithons. This was their work, but after them came the copyist and the invariable deterioration. A parallel case is that of the introduction of the art of coinage into this country about B.C. 200. It found its way to us over nearly the same route, and in its earliest stages was, therefore, an imitation of the Greek and Phœnician money then current; but before many years had passed many of the designs had degenerated into conventional figures, often of a distinctive character, yet evolved by the exaggeration of some minor detail upon the prototype. Another comparison may be made with the customs of burial about the period we are considering. At first the useful and valuable flint implements of the deceased were, with a praiseworthy unselfishness, interred or cremated with his remains; but later, this sometimes became a mere matter of ceremony, and it was thought sufficient to substitute flint chippings for these offerings.

Assuming Stonehenge to be the prototype of our rude stone circles, it may be well to remember its general features, and particularly the dimensions of its plan. Its architecture consisted of an outer circle of ditch and earthen bank of an approximate diameter of three hundred feet, broken at the entrance from the north-east, where the banks are continued in that direction, and form an avenue of approach fifty feet in breadth. Within was a concentric circle one hundred feet in diameter, of upright stones supporting a continuous lintel. These stones are roughly squared, and the pillars now measure about fourteen feet above ground, whilst the lintels are about eleven and a half feet long. Ten feet within was a minor concentric circle of pillar stones, a few feet in height, arranged in pairs. Again, within were five huge trilithons arranged in the plan of a horse-shoe with a diameter of about fifty feet, and composed of stones similar in form to those of the outer peristyle, but varying in height to nearly twenty-five feet above the turf; one stone, for example, measuring, when exposed by excavation, twenty-nine feet eight inches in length. Finally, within the whole is the “altar-stone,” some sixteen feet by four, lying prone and within a broken, or horse-shoe shaped ellipse of a diameter of forty feet, composed of pillar stones about five or six feet high. Without the whole, and at a distance of two hundred and fifty feet from the centre, is a monolith, or “pointer,” sixteen feet high, known as the Friar’s Heel. It stands to the north-east and a fraction to the south of a line drawn from the altar-stone along the centre of the avenue. Another stone, now fallen, lies on the line just within the enclosure.

From this very superficial description it will be noticed that there is a certain geometrical proportion to scale. The diameter of the outer bank is three times that of the peristyle, which, in turn, is twice that of the trilithons. The space betwen the peristyle and the outer bank equals the diameter of the former. The diameter of the outer circle of small pillar stones is twice that of the inner ellipse of pillar stones, and the distance of the Friar’s Heel from the peristyle is twice the diameter of the latter. Even admitting a wide margin for inaccuracy, the impression must remain that there is ground for the suspicion that some attempt at a decimal system prevailed in the general plan of this mysterious monument.

These proportions are so obvious that it seems unlikely that they have escaped the attention of those who have studied the plan of Stonehenge. It was not, however, in relation to the great monument of the south that a possible system of geometrical mensuration suggested itself; but in the survey of our own hill-circles of Derbyshire, when it appealed so forcibly to observation that it prompted a reference to the prototype for possible confirmation.

No other county in England is so prolific in prehistoric circles as that of Derby. Many, probably, are still undiscovered, for the writer has been able to add several to the list. Yet at least twenty can be visited with the assistance of an Ordnance map, another dozen have disappeared in modern times, but are recorded by old authorities, and, no doubt, as many more lie hidden by the heather on our little-frequented moors. All are in the north-west quarter of the county, within a space of less than twenty miles square, and at an altitude of not less than a thousand feet.

Although differing much in dimensions and details, there was a common purpose, and consequently there is a uniform character in all. Commencing with the smallest, and measuring the diameters from stone to stone, we find: (1) a plain circle of standing stones, ten feet across, and with either a single stone or heap of stones at a short distance outside the circle, which, for convenience of reference, may be called the “pointer”; (2) similar, but with a diameter of twenty feet, and an encircling mound, or vallum, of earth, in the inner edge of which the stones are usually set; (3) the same, but with diameters of thirty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred, and one hundred and fifty feet. It is probable that, originally, all had a cromlech of some description in the centre, or, as at Ford, a small circle in the north-eastern quarter. At Park Gate this remains as a central cone of stones; at Arbor Low as three great stones, which, with the rest, have fallen; on Offerton Moor it was four stones, and at the Wet Withens a single stone. Outside the circle at Arbor Low is a raised causeway of earth extending in a curved line from the circle towards its artificial mound, Gib Hill, a thousand feet away, which once it probably joined. At Stadon a similar causeway leaves the circle, but returns to it again in the form of the lower half of a triangle, and at the Wet-Withens Mr. Trustram called attention to the remains of what was, very possibly, an avenue of stones arranged in parallel lines at equal distances towards the south-west. These alignments must be considered with reference to the avenue at Stonehenge.

The circles are never present on the actual summit of a hill, but are almost invariably on the hillside near the highest point. Hence on one side they have a sharp and near horizon and on the other a distant view. All have, or presumably have had, a “pointer” outside the circle; that is, an artificial mound of earth or stones or a smaller circle to the larger examples, and a single upright stone to the smaller.

It will have been noticed that the diameters of the circles have evidently been planned according to a geometrical scale, of which the unit seems to have been equivalent to ten feet of our measure. A reference, for example, to the plan of Arbor Low will again demonstrate this point. The average diameter of the circle of the stones is one hundred and fifty feet, the width of the fosse is twenty feet, and that of the vallum on the ground level is thirty feet, and its height above the excavated fosse is ten feet; the total diameter of the monument is two hundred and fifty feet, and Gib Hill, its pointer, stands one thousand feet away south-west by west. But the stones at Arbor Low, and, indeed, those of all the other examples, do not form a true circle; there is always an elliptical variation. At Arbor Low this variation is about ten feet; at the Wet-Withens it is only three or four feet. At the former there are in the centre three fallen stones, which in all probability formed a dolmen, of which the capstone measures fourteen feet in length; it may be assumed, therefore, that its supporters occupied a space of about ten feet. At the Wet-Withens we read that there was originally a single large stone in the centre, which we may assume was not more than three or four feet in diameter. If, therefore, the central cromlech was first erected, and the radius of the circle of stones measured from its outside walls instead of from the true centre, we have the probable explanation of the elliptical variation in every case. The variation, in turn, should give us some idea of the central cromlech when, as in so many instances, it has been destroyed.