The circle itself is compos’d of stones of various shapes and dimensions, set pretty near together, as may best be seen by the drawings, Table [III], [IV.] They are flattish, about 16 inches thick. Originally there seems to have been 60 in number, at present there are 22 standing, few exceeding 4 foot in height; but one in the very north point much higher than the rest, 7 foot high, 5½ broad. There was an entrance to it from the north-east, as is the case at Stonehenge. Ralph Sheldon, esquire, dug in the middle of the circle at Rowldrich, but found nothing.
6. Another argument of its being a Druid temple, is taken from the barrows all around it, according to the constant practice in these places. To the north-east is a great tumulus or barrow of a long form, which I suppose to have been of an arch-druid. Between it and our temple is a huge stone standing upright, called the kingstone; the stone is 8 foot high, 7 broad, which, together with the barrow, may be seen in Tables [III], [V.] but the barrow has had much dug away from it. ’Tis now above 60 foot in length, 20 in breadth, flattish at top.
I know not whether there were more stones standing originally about this barrow, or that this belong’d to some part of the administration of religious offices in the temple, as a single stone.
In the same plate may be seen another barrow, but circular, below the road to the left hand, on the side of the hill. Under it is a spring-head running eastward to Long Compton. This barrow has had stone-work at the east end of it. Upon this same heath eastward, in the way to Banbury, are many barrows of different shapes, within sight of Rowldrich; particularly, near a place call’d Chapel on the heath, is a large, flat, and circular tumulus, ditch’d about, with a small tump in the center: this is what I call a Druid’s barrow; many such near Stonehenge, some whereof I opened; a small circular barrow a little way off it. There are on this heath too, many circular dish-like cavities, as near Stonehenge, we may call them barrows inverted.
Not far from the Druid’s barrow I saw a square work, such as I call Druids’ courts or houses. Such near Stonehenge and Abury. ’Tis a place 100 cubits square, double-ditch’d. The earth of the ditches is thrown inward between the ditches, so as to a raise a terrace, going quite round. The ditches are too inconsiderable to be made for defence. Within are seemingly remains of stone walls. ’Tis within sight of the temple, and has a fine prospect all around, being seated on the highest part of the ridge. A little further is a small round barrow, with stone-work at the east end, like that before spoken of near Rowldrich; a dry stone wall or fence running quite over it, across the heath.
Return we nearer to the temple, and we see 300 paces directly east from it in the same field, a remarkable monument much taken notice of; ’tis what the old Britons call a Kist vaen or stone chest; I mean the Welsh, the descendants of those invaders from the continent, Belgæ, Gauls and Cimbrians, who drove away the aboriginal inhabitants, that made the works we are treating of, still northward. Hence they gave them these names from appearances; as Rowldrich, the wheel or circle of the Druids; as Stonehenge they call’d choir gaur, the giants’ dance; as our saxon ancestors call’d it Stonehenge, the hanging-stones, or stone-gallows. Every succession of inhabitants being still further remov’d from a true notion and knowledge of the things.
Our Kist vaen is represented in plates [VI.] and [VII.] One shews the foreside, the other the backside; so that there needs but little description of it. ’Tis compos’d of six stones, one broader for the back-part, two and two narrower for the sides, set square to the former; and above all, as a cover, a still larger. The opening is full west, to the temple, or Rowldrich. It stands on a round tumulus, and has a fine prospect south-westward down the valley, where the head of the river Evenlode runs. I persuade myself this was merely monumental, erected over the grave of some great person there buried; most probably the king of the country, when this temple was built. And if there was any use of the building, it might possibly be some way accommodated to some anniversary commemoration of the deceased, by feasts, games, exercises, or the like, as we read in the classic poets, who describe customs ancienter than their own times. It is akin to that Kist vaen in Cornwall, which I have drawn in [plate XXXVII].
TAB. VII.
P. 12.
View of the Kistvaen of Rowldrich from the Southwest.
