116 A Report of Diggings made in Silbury Hill, 



One can hardly, however, suppose that materials would have been 

 taken from any spot originally intended to form part of the mound, 

 as there would have been the double labour first of removing and 

 then of replacing material ; but it is no improbable supposition 

 that the existing hill covers a larger area than it was originally 

 intended to cover, and so that it extended over ground from which 

 materials had alread}' been taken. 



However this may be, the original turf was not reached, and no 

 traces of the Roman Road discovered by the first day's excavations 

 in the hill itself. 



The search under Silbury being a failure, it was suggested that it 

 might be well to look for the road to the south, on the brow of the 

 adjoining ground, where Stukeley, Sir Richard Hoare, and the Ord- 

 nance Survey had marked it, and constant tradition had fixed it. 

 The field here is arable, and had been recently harrowed. The 

 rain which fell on the night of the 2Ist, had washed the chalk 

 and flints so clean, that the track of the road was faintly shown by 

 the greater accumulation of chalk on the surface of the ancient 

 road, as compared with the ground right and left. (The chalk 

 rubble had doubtless been thrown up from the trenches, dug 

 in constructing the road.) Viewed from the top of Silbury, 

 it had the appearance of a " milky way," similar to that observable 

 in the Beckhampton fields, and on the eastern side of West Down, 

 where the Roman Road has undeniably been ploughed up. To the 

 westward of this field, and within 200 yards of it, the outline of 

 the Road might be traced in slight relief above the general level 

 of the ground, by the eye of one retiring a short distance from it, 

 particularly in favourable conditions of light and shade. Further 

 west, its course was shown in a field of Turnips, by the more 

 vigorous growth of the plants, which occupied the deeper soil on 

 each side of the road. But the main object was to ascertain the 

 exact position of the Roman Road in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the hill. The indications on the surface being insufficient, 

 it occurred to Mr. Cunnington that satisfactory evidence might 

 be obtained by digging. Accordingly, on the morning of the 

 23rd, he directed that a trench should be dug across the spot, 



