PLAN OF ABURY, ABOUT

A. D. 1663;

FROM A RUDE

SKETCH BY JOHN AUBREY.

breadth proportionable to it: wherefore it could not be designed for a Fortification, for then the Graffe would have been on the outside of the Rampart.

"From the entrance at a to that at ẞ is sixty perches.

"From the entrance at y to that at 8 the same distance: and the breadth of the rampart is fower perches; and the breadth of the Graff the same distance. (See plate 2, section 1.)

"Round about the Graffe, (sc. on the edge or border of it) are pitched on end huge stones, as big, or rather bigger than those at Stoneheng: but rude and unhewen as they are drawn out of the earth-whereas those at Stoneheng are roughly-hewen. Most of the stones thus pitched on end, are taken away: only here and there doe still remain some curvilineous segments: but by these one may boldly conclude, that heretofore they stood quite round about, like a Crowne;

Ovid's Fastor. lib. v. L. 131.

"sed longa vetustas Destruit, et saxo longa senecta nocet.' Within this circumvallation are also (yet) remaining segments [of

His Majestie a roundish figure] of two (as I doe conjecture) Sadigge at the bottom cella, one the fig. 1, the other fig. 2, and their ruines the fig. 1, to try if are not unlike Ariadne's Crowne: and are no neerer I could find any hu- to a perfect circle than is that Constellation.† So within Christian churches are severall chapelles relas nunc micat illa spective to such or such a saint: and the like might

torum, lib. iii, 516. have been in the old time.

"This monument does as much exceed in greatness the so re

Stoneheng, as a Cathedral doeth a parish Church: so that ndure one might presume it to have been an Arch Temple ids.

trey of the stones called the Greytones, both this Antiquity, and that ere built. From the south entrance Walke, sc. of stones pitch'd on end gh, wh goes as far as Kynet [wch red mile from Aubury] and from eastward crossing the river, and

ascends up the hill to another monument of the same kind [but less] as in plate (2, sec. 2.) The distance of the stones in the walk, and the breadth of it, is much about the distance of a noble walke of trees of that length: and very probable this walke was made for Processions.

Mdm. The great stone at Aubury's towne's end, where this

"Perhaps at this angular turning,

Walke begins, fell down in Au- might be the Celle [or Convent] of tumn 1684, and broke in two, or the Priests belonging to these Temthree pieces: it stood but two foot ples: to be sure, they did not dwell deep in the earth. From Mr.

Walter Sloper, of Munckton, At- far from them: and their habitations might hapily be the occasion of the

torney.

rise of this village, Kynet.

"Within the circumference or Borough of this Monument, is now the village of Aubury, which stands per crucem, as is to be seen by Scheme (pl. 2, sec. 1.) The houses are built of the Frustums of those huge stones (for hereabout are no other stones to be found (except

Parson Bruns- flints) which they invade with great sledges. I have don of Mounckton. verbum Sacerdotis* for it, that these mighty stones (as hard as marble) may be broken in what part of them you please, without any great trouble: sc. make a fire on that line of the stone, where you would have it crack; and after the stone is well heated, draw over a line with cold water, and immediately give a knock with a smith's sledge, and it will break like the collets at the Glass-house.1

"The Church is likewise built of them: and the Mannour-house wh was built by the Dunches, temp. Reg. Elizabethæ: and also another faire House not far from that.

"By reason of the crosse streates, houses, gardens, orchards, and several small closes, and the fractures made in this Antiquity for the building of those houses, it was no very easy taske for me to trace out the Vestigia and so to make this Survey. Wherefore I have dis-empestred the Scheme from the enclosures, and houses, &c.: wh are altogether foreigne to this Antiquity, and would but have clowded and darkned the reall Designe. The crosse street 1 Compare with this extract from the 'Monumenta Britannica' Aubrey's account of these stones in his "Natural History of Wilts," p. 44, 1847.