196 
Pepys relates in his diary that he passed through Abury in 
1668, and was told by “a countryman of that town” that Silbury 
derived its name from one King Seall, who was buried there. 
He also noticed the circle on Overton Hill.* 
Mr Thomas Twinning, in 1723, published a work entitled 
“ Avebury, in Wiltshire, the remains of a Roman work erected 
by Vespasian and Julius Agricola during their several com- 
mands in Brittany.” He believed Abury, with its avenues, and 
Silbury to form a temple to Terminus. From its form of a 
wedge he called it Cunetium. Twinning gives a plan of this 
temple, which has afforded much amusement to Antiquaries on 
account of its evident inaccuracy and absurdity.t The Roman 
Cunetio, moreover, stood between Mildenhall and Savernake 
Forest, seven miles East of Abury. 
It remained for Dr Stukeley, in 1743, to give to the world 
a plan upon which, as he believed, the Temple of Abury was 
constructed. He frequented the place for years and took care- 
ful measurements of every detail. The whole figure he believed 
represented a serpent—the enclosed space at Abury being the 
body, the Kennet avenue the neck, the Overton circle the head, 
and the supposed Beckhampton avenue the tail. [See Plate II.] 
He believed that the three large stones within the Northern 
group formed the Adytum or Cove of the Temple, and that the 
victim to be offered up in sacrifice was fastened to the holed 
menhir which formed the centre of the Southern group.t 
A survey of Abury was made by Mr Crocker for Sir Richard 
Hoare, in 1812, and appears in his “ Ancient Wiltshire.” At 
that time the three stones of the Northern group and the single 
one of the Southern group were still standing. || 
Mr Long published his account of Abury in 1858. I gather 
from it that he accepts Dr Stukeley’s theory of a Temple in 
* Memoir of Samuel Pepys, Esq., M.D. Chandos Ed., pp. 520-1. 
+ Wiltshire Archeological and Natural History Magazine, Vol. IV., pp. 
319-321. 
{ Wiltshire Archeological and Natural History Magazine, Vol. IV., pp. 
322 et seq. 
|| Zd., pp. 324-326. [For a Restoration of Abury see Plate III.] 
