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THE AGGLESTONE. ♦ 

 [ Read at Worbarrow, August 28th, 1856. 3 



HuTCHiNS describes the Adlingstone, or Agglestone, as being 

 situated in the north-eastern extremity of the Isle of Purbeck, 

 on an heath, on the east side of Studland Bay, and in that Parish, 

 about a mile north-west from the village. It is a dark red sand- 

 stone, in form that of an inverted cone. On the east front it is 

 convex, on the west nearly flat; on the top, a ridge or bulge 

 runs its whole length from north to south, whence it slopes away 

 towards the east six feet, and towards the west five feet. There 

 is a considerable cleft in ^Jie middle from east to west. On the 

 surface of it are three hollows, or cavities, which might have 

 been rock-basins. Its circumference at the bottom is sixty feet, 

 in the middle eighty, and at the top ninety. Its height on the 

 east side is sixteen and a half feet, on the south side twelve and 

 a half, on the west thirteen and a half, (ju the north sixteen. 

 Its diameter at the top is thirty-six feet, by sixteen and a half. 

 It stands upon the summit of ( what appears like ) a regularly 

 formed Barrow, which is elevated more than seventy feet above 

 the surrounding heath. Measuring from the base of this barrow 

 to the top of the stone, the perpt^ndicular height is ninety feet. 

 The quarriers compute its weight at four hundred tons. Beneath 

 it are two large stones which have fallen away from its sides, 

 weighing severally sixteen and nine tons. There were also others 

 of various sizes, besides many tons which are reported to have 

 been carried away for building purposes, which must have made 

 this stone when entire, a prodigious one indeed, not inferior to 

 that at Conslantine, in Cornwall. 



♦ The country people call it the •Devirs night-cap,* from a tradi- 

 tion, that the Devil threw it from the Isle of Wight with a design to 

 demolish Corfe Castle; but it feil short and lodged here. 



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