Recent Wiltsliire Books, Pamplilets, Articles, &c. 517 



avenue had become useless. That the Kennet Avenue was once used as 

 a via sacra to observe the rise of a Centauri as the morning star warner 

 of the November sunrise is all the more probable since the avenue from 

 the southern end of the Kennet Avenue to the ' Sanctuary ' was an 

 alignment to the November sunrise itself so far as can now be made 

 out." 



As to Sir Norman's theory there is just this to be said, of course these 

 things may have happened. The Beckhampton Avenue mai/ have been 

 straight, but the evidence for the existence of that avenue at all rests 

 absolutely on Stukeley's evidence, and he depicts it as waved and not 

 straight, and except the " Longstone Cove" nothing whatever of it 

 remains now. The Kennet avenue, on the other hand, without a shadow 

 of a doubt entered the circle at Avebury in Stukeley's days, when enough 

 stones remained to trace its entire course, through the existing gap by 

 which the Kennet Road enters it to-day. On this point the plans of 

 both Aubrey and Stukeley leave no room for doubt. Therefore the 

 Kennet Avenue as Aubrey and Stukeley knew it certainly teas not 

 straight and did not jjoint to the centre of the southern circle. There 

 really is no possibility of arguing that it did. It may have done so 

 3500 B.C., as Sir Norman Lockyer believes, and the bank and ditch may 

 be an afterthought, but it has to be frankly stated not only that Stukeley 

 did not know this to be so, but that there is no grain of actual evidence 

 that it was so. 



Moreover, lo an observer within the circle at Avebury by far the 

 greater part of the Kennet Avenue must always have been invisible — 

 bank or no bank — owing to the intervening rise in the ground. 



Some Notes on the History of Mere, Wilts. By 



Thomas Henry Baker. Read at a meeting of the Church League, 

 October 15th, 1907. Printed by request. [1908.] 



Pamphlet, S^in. X 5^in., pp. 18. Printed by Edmunds & Sons, Mere. 



In this pamphlet Mr. Baker compresses a great deal of interesting 

 matter, more especially that which arises out of the entries in the 

 well-known churchwardens' books, into a small space. There is also an 

 interesting note on the families of Bettesthorne and Berkeley, and their 

 connection with the place. The earlier pages, dealing with prehistoric 

 matters, the Pen Pits, and the derivation of place names, contain, of 

 course, a good deal that is debateable, but the whole of the latter portion 

 of the paper — where Mr. Baker is on his own special ground — is full of 

 information. 



" The Two Bedwyns with Notes on the Wansdyke, 



StOkke, and Chisbury Camp." by W. Maurice Adams. 

 Appeared in a series of seventeen chapters in I'he Marlborough Times in 

 1906. The history of the place is treated at some length, six chapters 

 are taken up with Great Bedwyn Church, churchyard, and monuments, 

 and a chapter each is devoted to Stokke, Little Bedwyn, and Chisbury. 

 It contains a good deal of useful matter. 



