42 ON A CROMLECH FORMERLY STANDING ON RIBER HILL. 



" Leaving Matlock [Town] by a road a little above the church, 

 Riber Hill is seen rising to the clouds on the left hand. On the 

 brow of this hill, and nearly two miles above Matlock, our British 

 forefathers erected one of those stupendous monuments, a Tohnen, 

 Cromlech, or something of the same nature. It is mentioned by 

 Mr. Bray as much resembling a Cornish Logan Stone described 

 by Dr. Borlase. Till within these few years, this stone has re- 

 mained entire, though unnoticed by modern tourists. The land 

 on which it stood has passed into other hands ; a new tenant has 

 got possession of the farm, and this monument of antiquity has 

 been broken up to mend his fences or repair his house. The large 

 stone which formed the base still remains almost entire, and in all 

 probability will be suffered to remain so for years, for it forms part 

 of the wall of the field. It is situated near the barn, a little to 

 the right of the fir plantation at the northern brow " (p. 35). 



The fir plantation here referred to still remains, and Mr. Jewitt 

 indicates the situation of the Cromlech with so much particularity 

 that I felt sure that whenever I was enabled to visit the spot, 

 which I thought I had identified exactly on the Ordnance map, I 

 should find the site of the Cromlech at once. In August last I 

 ascended Riber Hill and sought the stone ; but so far as I could 

 trace, the hope expressed in the above extract that the rock which 

 formed the base would be "suffered to remain for years," had not 

 been fulfilled. In short, I was unable to find even the lower part 

 of the monument in anything like its pristine form, and my fear is 

 that it has been further mutilated until it bears no longer any 

 resemblance to its former self. Since J ewitt's time, Riber Castle 

 has been built, and the stone used in its erection, or some of it, 

 has been obtained from a quarry which lies on the north-east side 

 of the building. On the further side of this quarry from the Castle, 

 runs, at a right angle with the wall bounding the fir plantation on 

 its south-east side, a stone fence. At a point about half-way along 

 the quarry side, the stratum of gritstone evidently cropped out at 

 the surface, precisely in the line of the wall, of which it must 

 literally have formed part. This outcropping piece of rock was, I 

 believe, the base of the ancient stone monument about which I 



