Stukeley delin.
CHAP. V.
Of the two great temples included in the area of the great circle of stones. Each consists of two concentrick circles. One has a central obelisc or ambre, a very high stone in the center. The Egyptians called an obelisc an ambre. The other temple has a cove in the center, compos’d of three stones of a stupendous bulk, set in a nich-like figure. A short history of the destroyers of this noble work, but a very few years ago.
THE great circle of stones last described, together with the ditch and rampart inclosing all, may be esteemed as the præcinctus of the temple, not properly the temple; but including the area thereof. There are strictly within this great compass, two temples, of like form and dimensions: each temple consists of two concentric circles. The line that connects their centers, runs from north-west to south-east: which line passes thro’ the center of the whole area. The outer circles of them consist each of 30 stones of like dimensions with those of the outer circle, and at like intervals. The inner circles of both consist each of 12 stones, of the same size and distances. The geometry therefore of them, when laid down on paper, shews, the inner circle must be 100 cubits in diameter, the outer 240.
The centers of these two double circles are 300 cubits asunder. Their circumferences or outward circles are 50 cubits asunder, in the nearest part. By which means they least embarrass each other, and leave the freest space about ’em, within the great circular portico (as we may call it) inclosing the whole; which we described in the former chapter. There is no other difference between these two temples (properly) which I could discover, save that one, the southermost, has a central obelisc, which was the kibla, whereto they turn’d their faces, in the religious offices there performed: the other has that immense work in the center, which the old Britons call a cove: consisting of three stones plac’d with an obtuse angle toward each other, and as it were, upon an ark of a circle, like the great half-round at the east end of some old cathedrals: or like the upper end of the cell at Stonehenge; being of the same use and intent, the adytum of this temple. This I have often times admir’d and been astonish’d at its extravagant magnitude and majesty. It stands in the yard belonging to the inn. King Charles II. in his progress this way, rode into the yard, on purpose to view it.
This cove of the northern temple was undoubtedly the kibla thereof. It opens pretty exactly north-east, as at Stonehenge. It measures 34 foot, from the edge of the outer jambs; 20 cubits: and half as much in depth. Varro V. divinorum, writes, altars were of old call’d ansæ. So Macrobius saturn. II. 11. It seems that they mean this figure before us. And I suppose ’tis what Schedius means; de dis germ. c. 25. speaking of altars among the old germans set in a triangle, he says, the Druids understood a mystery thereby. Perhaps they intended it for a nich-like hemispherical figure, in some sort to represent the heavens. Sex. Pompeius writes, the ancients called the heavens, cove. The altar properly lay upon the ground before this superb nich. That, no doubt, was carry’d off long ago, as not being fix’d in the earth, and one of the wings is gone too, the northern. It fell down 1713, as marked in the ground-plot.
Fit sonus ingenti concussa est pondere tellus. Virg.
They told me it was full seven yards long, of the same shape as its opposite, tall and narrow. We measur’d this 17 foot above ground, 10 whole cubits; 7 foot broad, two and a half thick. These were the ansæ or wings of this noble ellipsis. That on the back, or in the middle, is much broader, being 15 foot, as many high, 4 thick; but a great piece of one side of it has been broke off by decay of the stone. We cannot conceive any thing bolder, than the idea of those people that entertain’d a design of setting up these stones. The vulgar call them the devil’s brand-irons, from their extravagant bulk, and chimney-like form. These coves, as Maundrel says of the turkish kiblas, shew the Druids’ aversion to idolatry, expressing the reality of the divine presence there, and at the same time its invisibility; no doubt a most ancient and oriental custom.
Of the exterior circle of this northern temple but three stones are now left standing, six more lying on the ground, one whereof in the street by the inn-gate. People yet alive remember several standing in the middle of the street; they were burnt for building, anno 1711. That at the corner of the lane, going to the north gate of the town, not many years since lying on the ground, was us’d as a stall to lay fish on, when they had a kind of market here. The ruin of the rest is noted in the ground-plot, and so of the others. But they told us, that about a dozen years ago both circles were standing, and almost entire. Those in the closes behind the inn, were taken up a year ago; (this was when I first went thither, about 1718,) farmer Green chiefly demolished them to build his house and walls at Bekamton. Of the southern temple several stones were destroy’d by farmer John Fowler, twelve years ago; he own’d to us that he burnt five of them; but fourteen are still left, whereof about half standing. Some lie along in the pastures, two let into the ground under a barn, others under the houses. One lies above ground under the corner of a house, over-against the inn. One buried under the earth in a little garden. The cavities left by some more are visible, in the places whereof ash-trees are set. All those in the pastures were standing within memory.