113 



^ f epvt of ^\ip\p miibe in Sil&urg pill 

 autr ill tlje 6rottni al)|oining. 



By the Rev. Pbebendaet "Wilkinson. 



iN" December 13th, 1865, Mr. James Fergusson addressed a 

 PJ letter to the Editor of the Athenseum, for the purpose of 

 repeating and enforcing the general argument of his article ou 

 Stonehenge and Avebury, in the Quarterly Eeview of July, 1860, 

 but particularly with the view of showing that " Silbury Hill, a 

 part of the Avebury arrangement, being situated on the Roman 

 Road, proved that the whole belonged to a period subsequent to 

 the departure of the Romans." The event which these works 

 were intended to commemorate, Mr. Fergusson felt convinced was 

 Arthur's twelfth and last great battle of Badon Hill, fought iu 

 616 or 520 ; the parallel lines of stones were nothing more or less 

 than full sized plans of the battle, lithographed on the field where 

 it was fought : the strategical position was one of the finest in this 

 country. Avebury was the head quarters of the northern arm}', 

 which on the morning of the battle was extended along the Kennet 

 and Beckhampton Avenues ; the position of Badon Hill was, how- 

 ever, outflanked, and there was nothing for it but to retire to the 

 second line of defence on the Roman Road, where the final struggle 

 took place and probably the General was slain, while Silbury was 

 raised to commemorate theevent. This Mr. Fergusson called " the 

 recovery of a lost chapter in British History." To others it 

 seemed a romance, particularly the attempt to assign an exact date to 

 our Wiltshire monuments which was disputed by Sir John Lubbock 

 and Professor Tyndall, the discussion turning greatly on the position 

 of the Roman Road ; Mr. Fergusson maintaining that the hill was 

 on it, and therefore more modern than it ; while Sir John Lubbock 

 and Professor Tyndall agreed with Sir Richard ColtHoare and others, 

 that the road swerved to the south of, and did not pass under the 

 hill. The correspondence ended with the expression of a hope by 



VOL. XI. — NO. XXXI. I 



