Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c. 169 



the ancient Egyptians, and presumably by the builders of the Stone 

 Circles also, as three in number. (1) To determine the time at night 

 by means of "Clock Stars." (2) To observe a star rising or setting 

 " heliacally," that is, about an hour before sunrise on the chief festivals. 

 (3) To determine when the sun had reached a certain part of its yearly 

 path at which the festivals occurred. 



" Stonehenge began as a May temple — a British Memphis — and ended 

 as a solsticial one like that of Amen-Ea at Thebes. Another conclusion 

 is that, whatever else went on some four thousand years ago in the British 

 Circles, there must have been much astronomical observation and a 

 great deal of preparation for it. Some of the outstanding stones must 

 have been illuminated at night, so that we have not only to consider that 

 the priest and deacons must have had a place to live in, but that a sacred 

 fire must have been kept going perpetually, or that there must have 

 been much dry wood available. The question then is raised whether 

 dolmens, chambered barrows, and the like, were not places for the living 

 and not for the dead and therefore whether the burials found in some do 

 not belong to a later time." 



Stonehenge Right of Way Case. The Commons and Foot, 

 paths Preservation Society's Report for 1904 — 5, contained a long and 

 interesting notice giving the history (from the Society's point of view) 

 of the action brought by it against Sir Edmund Antrobus, together with 

 an appendix by the Chairman of the Society, the Et. Hon. G. Shaw 

 Lefevre, commenting on the Judge's decision and justifying the conduct 

 of the Society. The Society bewails the possible ill effects of the Judge's 

 finding in other cases, effects which Wiltshire antiquaries would deplore 

 equally with the Society itself. Everyone recognises the admirable 

 work which the Society has done and is doing, but that does not prevent 

 Wiltshiremen from regarding its whole course of action in regard to 

 Stonehenge as being deplorably ill-advised, and as being therefore 

 largely itself responsible for any ill effects which the Judge's decision 

 may give rise to in other cases. 



A very different point of view is taken by Sir Edward Brabrook in a 

 paper on " The Progress of Antiquarian Eesearch," in The Antiquary 

 for May, 1907, p. 187. "By a strange perversity these things (the 

 enclosure of Stonehenge and the raising of the leaning stone by Sir 

 Edmund Antrobus) which ought to have won him commendation were 

 made matters of complaint, and a Society having for its declared object 

 the protection of the interests of the public took action against him in 

 the courts of law." 



Mr. A. G. Bradley, too, in " Eound about Wiltshire," says, "It seems 

 to me absurd to cavil about Eights of Way as if a grouse moor or a 

 spinney in Eichmond Park were the points at issue. Stonehenge is not 

 a place for beanfeasters to sprawl on, or for Tommy Atkins to occupy 

 in force while the enemy are approaching from Salisbury or Bulford. 

 . . . Stonehenge is neither a waterfall nor a stalactite cave. . . 

 and the South British proletariat are a great deal more likely to carve 



