TAB. VIII.
P. 14.
A Scenographic view of the Druid temple of Abvry in north Wiltshire, as in its original.
W. Stukeley Delin.
Præhonorabili Dño. Dño. Philippo Dño. Hardwick, summo magnæ Brittanniæ Cancellario tabulam. L.M.D. W. Stukeley.
The mighty carcase of Stonehenge draws great numbers of people, out of their way every day, as to see a sight: and it has exercis’d the pens of the learned to account for it. But Abury a much greater work and more extensive design, by I know not what unkind fate, was altogether overlooked, and in the utmost danger of perishing, thro’ the humor of the country people, but of late taken up, of demolishing the stones. Mr. Camden the great light of British antiquities, took Kennet avenue to be plain rocks, and that the village of Rockley took its name from them. It is strange that two parallel lines of great stones, set at equal distance and intervals, for a mile together, should be taken for rocks in their natural site. As for the town of Rockley, ’tis four miles off, has nothing to do with this antiquity, tho’ probably had its name from the adjacent gray weathers, whence our stones were drawn.
Dr. Holland, his annotator, writes thus of it. “Within one mile of Selbury, (by which he means Silbury-hill) is Abury, an uplandish village, built in an old camp, as it seemeth, but of no large compass. It is environed with a fair trench, and hath four gates, in two of which stand huge stones, as jambs; but so rude, that they seem rather natural than artificial: of which sort, there are some other, in the said village.” In the time, when this was wrote, all the circles of these great stones, within the village of Abury, were nearly perfect; two of about 150 foot diameter, two of 300 foot diameter, and the great one of above 1000: which merited a higher notice. The largeness of the circles hinder’d an incurious spectator from discerning their purpose.
I persuade my self the intelligent reader, by casting his eye over the plate in the [frontispiece], being the village of Abury, will see enough to excite a vast idea of the place: more so, if they conceive that the two avenues of Kennet and Bekamton, going off at the bottom, to the right and the left, extend themselves each, above a mile from the town.
Dr. Childrey likewise, in his Britannia Baconica, takes these stones about Kennet to be mere rocks. Thus if our minds are not properly dispos’d for these inquiries, or we believe nothing great in art, preceded the times of the Romans, we may run into Munster’s error, in cosmograph. iii. 49. who believes, plain celtic urns dug up in Poland, to be the work of nature. Harrington in his notes on Orlando furioso speaks likewise of Abury.
Just before I visited this place, to endeavour at preserving the memory of it, the inhabitants were fallen into the custom of demolishing the stones, chiefly out of covetousness of the little area of ground, each stood on. First they dug great pits in the earth, and buried them. The expence of digging the grave, was more than 30 years purchase of the spot they possess’d, when standing. After this, they found out the knack of burning them; which has made most miserable havock of this famous temple. One Tom Robinson the Herostratus of Abury, is particularly eminent for this kind of execution, and he very much glories in it. The method is, to dig a pit by the side of the stone, till it falls down, then to burn many loads of straw under it. They draw lines of water along it when heated, and then with smart strokes of a great sledge hammer, its prodigious bulk is divided into many lesser parts. But this Atto de fe commonly costs thirty shillings in fire and labour, sometimes twice as much. They own too ’tis excessive hard work; for these stones are often 18 foot long, 13 broad, and 6 thick; that their weight crushes the stones in pieces, which they lay under them to make them lie hollow for burning; and for this purpose they raise them with timbers of 20 foot long, and more, by the help of twenty men; but often the timbers were rent in pieces.