Vdr. Gucht. Sculp.
As to the internal texture of this stone, when broke, it looks whitish like marble. It would bear a pretty good polish, but for a large quantity of bluish granules of sand, which are soft, and give it a grayish or speckled colour, when smooth’d by an engine. It consists, as all other stones, of a mixture of divers substances, united by lapidescent juices, in a sufficient tract of time. Sometimes in one stone shall be two or three colours, sometimes bits of flints kneaded amongst the rest. In one stone fetch’d from Bekamton avenue, near Longstone barrow (as commonly call’d) and which was broken and made into a wall, at the little alehouse above Bekamton, in the Devizes road, I saw several bones, plainly animal, part of the composition of the stone. This I admir’d very much, and concluded it to be antediluvian. The stone in general is shining, close, and hard, little inferior to common marble; yet the effect which time and weather has had upon it, far beyond what is visible at Stonehenge, must necessarily make us conclude the work to be many hundred years older in date. In some places I could thrust my cane, a yard long, up to the handle, in holes and cavities worn through by age, which must needs bespeak some thousands of years continuance.
CHAP. IV.
The figure of the temple of Abury is a circle and snake. Hakpen, another oriental word still preserved here, meaning the serpent’s head. The chorography of Abury. A description of the great circle of stones 1400 foot in diameter. Of the ditch inclosing it. The vallum form’d on the outside, like an amphitheater to the place. This represents the circle in the hieroglyphic figure. Of the measures, all referring to the ancient eastern cubit which the Druids us’d.
THE situation of Abury is finely chose for the purpose it was destin’d to, being the more elevated part of a plain, from whence there is an almost imperceptible descent every way. But as the religious work in Abury, tho’ great in itself, is but a part of the whole, (the avenues stretching above a mile from it each way,) the situation of the intire design is likewise projected with great judgment, in a kind of large, separate plain, four or five miles in diameter. Into this you descend on all sides from higher ground. The country north of Abury, about Berwick-basset and Broad Hinton, is very high, tho’ not appearing so to be, and much above the level of Abury town. In a field of Broad Hinton the water runs two ways, into the Thames and Severn, and they pretend ’tis the highest ground in England. ’Tis indeed part of that very great ridge of hills, coming from Somersetshire, and going hence north-eastward, to the white-horse hill. So that the ground northward and westward, tho’ not much appearing so, is still very high, a cliff descending that way; and whilst guarded to the east by the Hakpen, yet it may be called like the thessalian, of the same name,
——Zephyris agitata Tempe. Hor.
The whole temple of Abury may be consider’d as a picture, and it really is so. Therefore the founders wisely contriv’d, that a spectator should have an advantageous prospect of it, as he approach’d within view. To give the reader at once a foreknowledge of this great and wonderful work, and the magnificence of the plan upon which it is built, I have design’d it scenographically in [Table VIII.] the eye being somewhat more elevated than on the neighbouring hill of Wansdike, which is its proper point of sight, being south from it.
When I frequented this place, as I did for some years together, to take an exact account of it, staying a fortnight at a time, I found out the entire work by degrees. The second time I was here, an avenue was a new amusement. The third year another. So that at length I discover’d the mystery of it, properly speaking; which was, that the whole figure represented a snake transmitted thro’ a circle; this is an hieroglyphic or symbol of highest note and antiquity.
In order to put this design in execution, the founders well studied their ground; and, to make their representation more natural, they artfully carry’d it over a variety of elevations and depressures, which, with the curvature of the avenues, produces sufficiently the desired effect. To make it still more elegant and picture-like, the head of the snake is carried up the southern promontory of the Hakpen hill, towards the village of West Kennet; nay, the very name of the hill is deriv’d from this circumstance, meaning the head of the snake; of which we may well say with Lucan, lib. IV.