Part 3

Mr. Story Maskelyne considers the Greeks reformed the Temple later on. “Within 500 years of the latest of the above-mentioned dates the Phœnician or Tyrian Empire had ceased to exist, and her numerous colonies had been absorbed by the nationalities surrounding them. About B.C. 400 the Greeks supplanted the Phœnicians in their trade with Britain, and probably for some time continued to use the same mart and sea route the latter had used—we may assume from Cherbourg to Poole or Christchurch, whence they bore away the tin in their coracles from Cornwall. Now commenced a new era for Stonehenge. It must have been a noted Temple, and I cannot doubt that Hecatæus did allude to it as cited by Strabo, when he wrote, in the sixth century B.C., of the Round Temple to Apollo in the land of the Hyperboreans. Now the festivals of the Greeks were more connected with the months than with the year, and their calendar months were alternate, full and hollow, where the thirty pillars were doubtless used by them for the daily sacrifice in the months of thirty days and the spaces between them, omitting the entrance, for the hollow months, of twenty-nine days. Owing to the precession of the stars, Stonehenge no longer answered some of the purposes for which it has been founded. The Greeks had adopted with ardour the Metonic Cycle discovered by them B.C. 430, and they reformed the old Sun Temple by the addition of the inner horseshoe of blue stones which represented that Cycle, for they were in number nineteen. As to how, or why, the blue stones came to be imported, I imagine they are native to Brittany or Normandy, whence they might easily have been brought as ballast in Greek ships, which took back tin in their stead from Poole or Christchurch, and from the latter port they might easily have been taken in rafts to Amesbury.”

[Picture: The stone and flint implements discovered at Stonehenge during the excavations in 1902]

[Picture: Hele Stone]

THE DATE OF STONEHENGE.

IN printing this second edition of my little guide-book, I think it will be found interesting and necessary to leave all the former evidence and opinions that I collected as to the date of Stonehenge. Since the excavations in 1901, I think we may consider the age of Stonehenge to be between three and four thousand years. Mr. W. Gowland judges from the implements or tools found, Sir Norman Lockyer and Dr. Penrose from astronomical observations, based on the fact that the avenue (“Viâ Sacra”) to Stonehenge from the east of the ancients was in a line with the Altar Stone, so that the sun, rising on the day of the solar half-year (June 21st) and creeping over the horizon, shed his beams on the Altar Stone, thus marking the solar half-year. Of course, the east of the ancients is not our east, but the difference between the position of the sun _now_ and then to the avenue gives, according to these gentlemen’s calculations, a date of 3700 years old to Stonehenge.

THE FINDS AT STONEHENGE, 1901.

THE implements found during the excavations made for the underpinning of the “Leaning Stone” are thus classified by Mr. W. Gowland:—

(1) Haches roughly chipped, longer and shorter. (2) Axe-hammers. (3) Hammer-stones with blunt edge. The above are of flint. (4) Regular hammer-stones of compact sarsen. (5) Mauls of the same rock, weighing from 37 to 64 lbs. each. There were also found chippings from the monoliths, and, near the surface, coins and animal bones.

Only one trace of copper or bronze occurred other than coins and superficial finds, a mere strain on a block of sarsen. So we may consider Stonehenge to belong to the late Neolithic, or early Bronze Period. These objects have been lent by Sir Edmund Antrobus to the museum at Devizes for a period of six months.

* * * * *

In the January, 1902, number of _Man_, Mr. W. Gowland’s interesting paper will be found, describing the excavations, methods of trimming and erecting the stones practised by the ancients.

As to the kinds of stone actually employed in the building of Stonehenge, the whole of the outer circle and the four stones lying beyond that circle are undoubtedly “Sarsen” (which are the boulder stones left by the ice-sheet of the glacial period on the Wiltshire downs). There are, in the inner circle, four stones which have been called “horn-stone.” The remainder are “diabase,” commonly called “bluestones,” and similar are found in Wales, and in parts of Cumberland and Cornwall, the so-called Altar Stone being a kind of grey sandstone, not sarsen. The large outlying stone, known traditionally as the “Friar’s Heel,” from a legend that when the devil was busy erecting Stonehenge he made the observation that no one would ever know how it was done. This was overheard by a friar lurking near by, and he incautiously replied in the Wiltshire dialect, “That’s more than thee can tell,” and fled for his life; the devil, catching up an odd stone, flung it after the friar, and hit him on the heel. This stone is also named the “Pointer,” because from the middle of the Altar Stone the sun is seen at the summer solstice (21st of June) to rise immediately above it. The Hele Stone is the true name, “Hele” meaning “to hide,” from Heol or Haul of Geol or Jul, all names for the sun, which this stone seems to hide. From the Friar’s Heel it is about 66 yards to a low circular earthen boundary, enclosing the area within which Stonehenge stands. Just within the entrance to this earthen ring lies a large prostrate stone called the “Slaughter Stone,” supposed by some to have been used for the slaughter of victims about to be offered in sacrifice at the altar. The Slaughter Stone (at the end nearest to the Friar’s Heel) bears evidence of tool-marks, there being six small round cavities made in it by blows from a flint tool. On the margin of the earthen ring, one 55 yards on the left, the other 95 yards on the right of the entrance, are two small, unhewn stones.

[Picture: Ground plan as presumed to have been originally. A. Small Trilithon of Syenite. That it stood here is only conjecture. It now lies as marked A below]

[Picture: A. Trilithon fell 1797. B. Upright with capstone fell, Dec. 31st, 1900]

[Picture: Great Trilithons (as it was)]

Stonehenge stands about 440 feet above the sea-level. The outer circle measures 308 feet in circumference, and is supposed to have been formed originally of thirty upright stones, seventeen of which are still standing, and the remains of nine others are to be found fallen to the ground. These stones formerly stood 14 feet above the surface of the ground, but now are of different heights. Their breadth and thickness also vary: the former averaging 7 feet, the latter 3½. The stones were fixed in the ground at intervals of 3½ feet, connected at the top by a continuous line of thirty imposts forming a corona or ring of stone at a height of 16 feet above the ground, and were all squared and rough hewn, and cleverly joined together. The uprights were cut with knobs or tenons, which fitted into mortice holes hewn in the undersides of the horizontal stones. About 9 feet within this peristyle was the “inner circle,” composed of diabase obelisks; within this, again, was the “great ellipse,” formed of five, or, as some think, seven trilithons of stones, each group consisting of two blocks placed upright and one crosswise. These structures rose progressively in height from N.E. to S.W., and the loftiest and largest attained an elevation of 25 feet. Lastly, within the trilithons was the “inner ellipse,” consisting of nineteen obelisks of diabase. Within the inner ellipse we find the Altar Stone. At the present moment, there remains of the outer circle or peristyle sixteen uprights and six imposts; of the inner circle, seven only stand upright of the great ellipse—there are still two perfect trilithons and two single uprights. The Duke of Buckingham, in his researches in 1620, is said to have caused the fall of a trilithon. He was at Wilton in the reign of James I., and he “did cause the middle of Stonehenge to be digged, and under this digging was the cause of the falling down or recumbency of the great stone there, twenty-one foote long.” “In the process of digging they found a great many horns of stags and oxen, charcoal batter-dishes (?), heads of arrows, some pieces of armour eaten out with rust, bones rotten, but whether of stagge’s or men they could not tell.”

In 1797, on a rapid thaw succeeding a severe frost, another trilithon fell; of the inner ellipse, there are six blocks in their places; and in the centre remains the so-called Altar Stone.

In Sir R. C. Hoare’s “History of Wiltshire,” he mentions that Inigo Jones observed a stone, which is now gone, in the inmost part of the cell, appearing not much above the surface of the earth and lying towards the east, four feet broad and sixteen long, which was his supposed Altar Stone. Also “Philip, Earl of Pembroke (Lord Chamberlayne to King Charles I.), did say ‘that an altar stone was found in the middle of the area here, and that it was carried away to St. James’s.’”

The entrance to Stonehenge faced the N.E., and the road to it, “Viâ Sacra,” or avenue, can be traced by banks of earth.

It is the opinion of competent authorities that many of the stones should be underpinned in the manner of the “Leaning Stone,” as any violent storms, such as periodically sweep across the Plain, might bring them down. The fall of two of the stones from the outer circle (supposed by the superstitious to foretell the Queen’s death) on December 31st, 1900, the last day of the old century, and 103 years after the last stones fell, was caused by a gale from the west.

There are the two opinions as to the right course to pursue regarding Stonehenge—some people considering it would be well to leave it to fall down, so that eventually it would appear like a jumbled heap of ninepins, others (myself among the number) that the necessary steps for its Preservation, _not_ Restoration, should be taken.

FLORENCE C. M. ANTROBUS.

_April_, 1902.

PARTICULARS OF THE STONES.

58 stones of the Sarsen circle: 30 piers, 28 lintels. 26 ,, ,, Bluestone circle (2): this includes 1 impost. 15 ,, ,, Sarsen trilithons: 10 piers, 5 imposts. 19 „ Inner bluestones. 1 Sun stone. 1 Altar stone. 1 Slaughter stone. 1 Stones of the Earth Circle. 123 Total

.

The question arises whether there were formerly other stones belonging to the earth circle. From probing the ground, there is reason to believe that a stone on this bank may once have marked the direction of the axis.

SARSEN CIRCLE.

17 piers _in situ_, 8 prostrate or fragments, 5 missing.

6 lintels _in situ_, 2 fragments, 20 missing.

BLUESTONE CIRCLE.

12 stones or stumps _in situ_, 10 prostrate, 4 missing.

SARSEN TRILITHONS.

5 piers _in situ_, 3 prostrate, 5 missing.

From this list of missing blue stones we may safely deduct two; two pieces of rock are known to be beneath the turf, and there may be others. The most satisfactory derivation of Sarsens or Sassens is from the Anglo-Saxon word for a rock or stone—_ses_, plural _sesen_ or _sesons_. The Inner Circle of blue stones and Inner Horse-shoe are composed of the “Blue Stones,” igneous rocks.

DERIVATION OF AMESBURY.

“On Salisbury Plain stand the ruins of the weird Circle of Revolution, Cor y Coeth in Welsh, the Circle of Dominion, the holy anointed stones of Ambresbiri (_ambree_, anointed; _biri_, Hebrew for holy ones), at once a sanctuary and a sundial (3000 years ago the only clock in Britain), regulated by the sun and moon for days and years. But the beautiful old British names since the sixth century have been blotted out by the terrible title _Stonehenge_ or stone gallows—Stanhengen in Anglo-Saxon. A permanent gallows of stone was used by the Saxons for the execution of criminals, and wishing to aim a death-blow at British power, no surer way was found by the invaders than by hanging British leaders upon the consecrated stones of their revered temple. The road from the village of Amesbury to the Circle is still called Gallow’s Hill.”

_From Mrs. Gordon’s Pamphlet_.

DERIVATION OF DRUID.

An Arabic (and Persian) word meaning Holy Men come from the valley of the Euphrates. Mrs. Gordon considers Merlin (the Bismarck of his age) as the builder of Stonehenge; also that Aurelius Ambrosius, by his own wish, was buried within the Circle of Stonehenge.

DERIVATION OF BARROWS.

Barrow, a Hebrew word for grave Mounds. Literally, the “thrown-up pit of lamentation.”

DERIVATION OF WILTSHIRE.

Wiltshire, in the Saxon Chronicles Wiltunseir, in Doomesday Wiltescire, derives its name from the town of Wilton, from the Wit-saetas (_saetan_ = settlers or inhabitants), the West Saxon tribe who made it their home.

MENTION OF AMESBURY IN MALORY’S “MORTE D’ARTHUR.”

“And thus upon a night there came a vision unto Sir Launcelot, and charged him, in remission of all his sins, to haste him towards Almesbury. ‘And by that time thou come, there thou shalt find Queen Guenever dead; and therefore take thy fellows with thee, and also purvey thee a horse bier, and bring you the corpse of her, and bury it by her lord and husband.’ Then Sir Launcelot took his seven fellows with him, and on foot they went from Glastonbury, which is little more than thirty miles. And when Sir Launcelot was come to Almesbury, within the nunnery, Queen Guenever died but half an hour before.”

Timbs, in his “Abbeys and Castles in England,” says: “At Amesbury, says Bishop Tanner, quoting from Geoffrey of Monmouth, there is said to have been an ancient British monastery for 300 monks, founded, as some say, by the famous Prince Ambrosius who lived at the time of the Saxon invasion, and who was therein buried, destroyed by that cruel pagan, Gurmendus, who overran all this country in the sixth century.” This alludes to a monastery prior to the one founded by Elfrida, with which I begin my account of Amesbury Abbey.

THE AVENUE OR VIÂ SACRA

is orientated to the midsummer sunrise, and points 50° east of north point. It leads uninterruptedly to the circular space formed by the earth circle in which Stonehenge stands, the enclosing bank being discontinued in this direction. It is noteworthy that the sun stone, as well as the slaughter stone, are not placed in the centre of the avenue or approach, but lie towards the eastern side of it. The avenue is made by two parallel lines confining ditches, the earth having been thrown inwards so as to slightly raise the roadway. These ditches, though shallow, are distinct. The avenue thus formed descends the gradual incline of the Down, until at about one thousand five hundred feet from the sun stone the ditches become indistinguishable. Here the descent is more rapid and leads to a gentle valley in the Down, where the avenue divided into two branches. It is now impossible to trace this point of division with any certainty.

THE CURSUS AVENUE.

This is now completely obliterated.

THE LONG AVENUE.

The branch which turned to the right, forming the eastern slope of the valley, went over its crest and continued in a straight line in the direction of some high land to the north of Vespasian’s Camp. The plough at work year after year has completely effaced all traces of this avenue, and we have to rely on Dr. Stukeley’s account written 150 years ago.

THE PARALLEL BANK.

At 1200 feet from the sun stone “the approach” is intersected at an angle approximating roughly to a right angle by parallel banks about two feet in height and forty feet apart; the roadway thus formed continues about 600 feet to left and right; to the east it is continued by a causeway across the valley already spoken of, and it is used by carts passing that way, required in the cultivation of fields to the west of the avenue.

THE CURSUS.

_Discovered by Dr. Stukeley_, 1723.

This great enclosure lies to the north of Stonehenge, and veers 6° from due east and west. Like the avenue it is formed by banks thrown up from an outer ditch. It is 9000 feet in length, with a width of 350 feet at its centre, but towards its extremities it narrows. To the west, the southern boundary is irregular. The northern ditch, on the contrary, makes a fairly straight line. Its eastern end is headed by a long mound now difficult to trace. Near its western extremity, and within the enclosure, are two small tumuli irregularly placed. The greater part of this earthwork being on the uncultivated Down is fairly well defined, especially to the west; to the east it has been obliterated by the plough.

THE LESSER CURSUS.

To the north-west of the Great Cursus and over 7000 feet distant from Stonehenge, is an earthwork apparently the beginning of a second cursus. It is ill defined, and at 1200 feet from its enclosed end the ditches cease. It appears to be an abandoned scheme for an enclosure similar to the Cursus.

From “Stonehenge,” Mr. Edgar Barclay. At page 66 he says:—“The Cursus is irregular in shape, nevertheless there remains a very strong probability that it is an adjunct of Stonehenge, and was designed with it, and is not an independent earthwork as Sir R. Colt Hoare maintains.”

From Mr. J. F. Hewitt’s “Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times”:—“A hippodrome can still be traced about half a mile north of the Temple, with which it is connected by an avenue about forty cubits wide. This is divided into two branches, about 1700 feet from the Temple, the eastern hand going eastward to Radfin, a ford on the Avon, and the western curving round to the ancient chariot-course. It was here the seasonal games took place, said by Macrobius to have been celebrated by the Druids, when sacrifices were offered to the gods. This ancient _campus martius_, running east and west, is about 10,000 feet or 6000 Druidical cubits long, and 350 feet or 200 Druidical cubits wide, and on the east side is a long bank, extending nearly its whole length, which must have served as a place for spectators; while on the west side is a curve to allow for the turning of the competing chariots. There can be no doubt whatever that this racecourse represents the ancient site of the national games; instituted by the Sons of the Horse, which are said in Greek tradition to have been founded by Akastus, king of Iolcus, after he had driven out Jason and Medea the sorceress.”

EARTHWORKS ON SALISBURY PLAIN.

Tumuli, or Barrows, are the most simple kind of sepulchral monument; they consist of a mound of earth or stones raised over the dead.

Sir Richard Colt Hoare thus classifies them in his “History of Wiltshire”:—

1. The Long Barrow. Differing considerably in their construction.

2. The Bowl Barrow. The most ordinary shape.

3. The Bell Barrow. This, from the elegance of its form, seems a refinement on the Bowl Barrow. They abound near Stonehenge.

4. Druid Barrow (1st class). I consider these tumuli were appropriated to the female tribes. The outward vallum with the ditch within is beautifully moulded, and in most instances found to contain small cups, small lance heads, amber, jet, and glass beads.

5. Druid Barrow (2nd class). In external form these resemble the preceding, but their circumference is not so large. The tumulus within rises to a point from the edge of the vallum.

6. Pond Barrow. They differ totally from all others, and resemble an excavation made for a pond. I can form no conjecture as to their use.

7. Twin Barrow. They are not very common, and, by being enclosed in a circle, seem to denote the interment of relations.

8. Cone Barrow. The only one I have seen is at Everley. The tumulus rises immediately from the ditch, and the apex is higher and more pointed.

9. Broad Barrow. Resembles the Bowl Barrow, but is higher and flatter at the top.

Mr. Edgar Barclay, in “Stonehenge,” says:—“The presence of barrows (near Stonehenge) would enable marriages to be celebrated on the spot. A feast at the family tomb was an opportunity for a young woman about to marry to be formally introduced to the domestic worship of the family she was about to enter. That feasts did occur at Stonehenge Barrows we have proofs. We find also that Irish Fairs in honour of the Sun God were held in proximity to extensive burial-places. The arrangement of the avenues, the placing of the cursus, the placing of the sun stone and slaughter stone, the break in the lintel circle, &c.: these characteristics point out to us the probable procedures at times of festival. The midsummer festival solemnized the holy espousals of the Sun God with the land.”

In “The Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times,” Mr. Hewitt says:—“The deer worshippers were the mixed race formed from the union of the sons of the mother-tree, the mother-bear and wolf, the lordly boar and the prolific sow, the mother-cow, the mother-mountain, and father firestone, the people who looked on the Sun God of the equinoxes and solstices as the god who made their crops to grow and who ripened their barley, the seed of life (_zi_), the Zeus of the Greeks, which gave its name to the Deus of the Latins and the Theos of the Greeks, the Manx god Ji. This father sun god was the god on the grey white horse, the clouds, the white horse in Zend mythology of Tishtrya, the star of the summer solstice which succeeded the golden horned bull of the bull race, as the adversary and conqueror of the black horse, and the black bull or dragon, the cloud which will not give up its rain, which was in Northern mythology the winter frost giant. It was this white horse—the sun god of the limestone, flint, and chalk country—which was the god of Stonehenge, the temple whose ruins still remain to set before us, with absolute certainty of the correctness of the deduction in its main details, the complete ritual of this primæval worship.”

_Note_.—The white sun horse is still worshipped and fed daily at Kobe, in Japan.

The worshippers of the sun god who built this temple are proved to have belonged to the Bronze age by the number of round barrow tombs within twelve miles of it; and Stukeley (A.D. 1723) counted one hundred and twenty-eight as visible from a hill close by.

VESPASIAN’S CAMP.

A name given by Dr. Stukeley to the (probably) British earthworks, locally known as “the Ramparts,” which crown a hill in the demesne of Amesbury Abbey. Its ancient lines of defence, enclosing thirty-nine acres and boldly scarped towards the west, environ the summit in the form of a scalene triangle. This hill is densely wooded, containing two beautiful avenues of beech-trees, and as it descends to the Avon, is cut into a fanciful shape, supposed to resemble a diamond. I have described this in “Amesbury Abbey.”

WEST AMESBURY HOUSE.

A pretty old house on the road-side, belonging to Sir Edmund Antrobus, built of stone and flint. The interior has been much altered and spoilt. Traces of a monastic building exist in the beams supporting the roof, and in a church doorway at the top of the staircase. These date from the fifteenth century. Aubrey informs us that this house and property, along with Stonehenge, once formed the dowry of the wife of Lord Ferrers of Chartley. The village of West Amesbury possesses some picturesque thatched cottages, and on an outside wall of one is a rude sketch of fighting cocks and their backers.

WILSFORD HOUSE.

A house on the banks of the Avon, built by the late Mr. Loder, of Salisbury, two miles from Amesbury. It is of the modern “villa” description. In 1898 Mr. Young purchased it from Sir E. Loder, and re-sold it to Mr. Edward Tennant in 1900. None of the places described along the Avon Valley are open to the public, but they can be seen from the high road.

[Picture: Lake House]

LAKE HOUSE,