41·2d.
At Bathe.
Stukeley delin.
I. Harris fecit.
The Weddings. Br. Temple. From the Bath I went to visit the famous Celtic temple called the Weddings, in company with John Strachey, esq; who lives near there, a person well versed in natural history and antiquities, and fellow of the Royal Society. I shall describe this memorable curiosity upon another occasion. In the way hither, about Twyfordton, I found a Marsbury field.fallow field with but little quantity of earth upon the rock: this was as full of fossil shells as possible, let into a softish stone, which had preserved their very natural colour of blue and white as perfectly as at first. Near Stanton Drue, in a trivium, is an old elm-tree made infamous for the bloody trophies of judge Jeffrys’s barbarity, in the duke of Monmouth’s rebellion; for all its broad-spreading arms were covered over with heads and limbs of the unfortunate countrymen. In Chu parish is Bowditch camp.Bowditch, a large camp on a hill trebly fortified, whence you may behold the isles of Flatholm and Steepholm in the sea. I suppose the word means the circular form of the place. Here is a petrifying spring. This country abounds with coal-pits: the slates that lie upon it, and have not received their due quantity of sulphur, so as to make perfect coal, are most curiously marked with impressions of plants, capillary ones especially, and more particularly those of fern; all which grew in exceeding plenty in this country, and gave their forms to this soft matter at the Deluge. This is indeed a rock, and full of springs, very bad road for travelling, short and steep valleys, narrow lanes, intricate, dark and hard: so no wonder harts-tongue, liver-wort, maiden-hair, navel-wort, and the like moist plants, thrive here. The ground in these valleys is very rich: much wood grows upon it; though in some roads you ride upon the superfice of a rock lying flat in great slabs, as if artificially placed with good joints. Many wood-plants grow about here, such as wood-sorrel, strawberries, tutsan or park-leaves, &c. The neatness of the houses even of the poorer sort of people is remarkable, being generally whited over, and with pretty little gardens, which in pure and unartful nature is a necessary adjunct in the happiness of life.
Camps.
There is a camp overlooks Stanton Drue, called Mizknoll; another at Elm, two miles west from Frome: in 1691 a pot of Roman coin found there, most of Constantine junior: it is upon the end of a precipice, and severed from the rest of the hill by a vallum on one side only: south of it runs a rivulet. Masbury castle upon Mendip hills, half a mile from the Foss, a mile north of Shipton-Mallet, of a round form, 150 paces diameter: the two entrances opposite: the environing ditch on one end laps over with a semi-lunar turn, rendering the passage to it oblique. Hereabouts are many camps, whose ditches are hewn out of the solid rock: that above Bristol has four trenches, as many vallums, and but one entrance: one would think it impregnable to any thing but hunger. A camp cut out of the rock at Churchill with a single trench. There is a cave equal to that of Ochey-hole at Dolebury. These are from information of Mr. Strachey.
In this county of Somersetshire are three remarkable hills, that make an exact triangle twelve mile each side, much talked of by the country people; Camalet castle, Glassenbury torr, and Montacute. They have a notion that king Arthur obtained from some saint, that no serpent or venomous creature should ever be found in this compass, though frequent all around it. I shall rehearse to your lordship what occurred to me at the places. All this country, though to the eye very pleasant with woods and prospects yet is very disagreeable to travel, for the reasons I just mentioned.