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the enclosed area, and the visitor’s view of the remaining 
Sarsens is obstructed by the houses and gardens of the village 
of Abury. 
On the West side of the road leading from Abury to West 
Kennet are a dozen upright or fallen menhirs, and there are 
others beyond West Kennet, between the main road from Bath 
to London, and the brook Kennet. These are believed to be 
the relics of one hundred Sarsens which formed an avenue ex- 
tending from Abury S.E. to West Kennet, and from thence 
in a more Easterly direction to a circle on Overton Hill, close 
to the spot where an ancient trackway, running due South, 
meets the Bath and London road. 
Stukeley believed that another avenue ran along the 
North side of the road which leads from Abury to Beckhampton 
and terminated in a menhir. Only four stones of this sup- 
posed avenue remain, and Ferguson, Lukis, and others have 
been very sceptical as to its existence. Nearly one mile to the 
South of Abury, and midway between the supposed extremities 
of the two avenues, rises up Silbury Hill, the largest artificial 
mound in* Europe, and equal in cubic dimensions to the second 
Egyptian Pyramid. Three miles and a half South of Abury, 
Wansdyke passes from East to West, following the bends of 
the hills, and joining a Roman road on Calstone Hill. 
Such is Abury at the present time. The questions which 
at once suggest themselves to the mind of the inquiring visitor 
are :—What was it in the past? What was the object of its 
builders? For what purposes was it used by our forefathers ? 
Was it a fortress, a temple, a place of popular assembly, a 
burial place, or a memorial of some great victory ? 
In Leland’s Itinerary, written about 1542, he says :— 
“Kenet risithe N.N.W. at Selberi Hille Botom, where by 
hathe be Camps and Sepultures of Men of Warre, as at Aibyri 
a mile of, and in dyvers Placis of the Playne.”’* 
I think we may at once dismiss the notiun of a camp, 
although Leland, 350 years ago, probably heard such a tradition. 
A fortress would have had its ramparts inside its ditch. 
* Leland’s Jtinerary, Vol. VII., fol. 66 b. 
