THE UREY SWE EHERS: 
ee 
an, has heard of the “Grey Wethers” of the 
»f4 Marlborough Downs. Locally known as “Sarsen 
Stones,” they are, geologically, the hardened and 
solidified boulders of a stratum of Eocene sand formerly 
covering the chalk, which in the course of ages has been 
denuded of the softer portions. These Sarsens vary in 
size from small boulders to vast masses of 60 or 70 
tons. They are found as scattered blocks over a wide 
area of the chalk country, but in the neighbourhood of 
Marlborough are in several places congregated together in 
such vast assemblages, following the windings of a narrow 
combe or “bottom” of the Downs, as to suggest the idea 
of a river of stones. Two of the most remarkable of these 
assemblages are those to be found in Lockeridge Dean 
and Pickle Dean; the latter collection, from the fact that 
the narrow valley containing the stones is actually crossed 
by the Bath Road some four miles west of Marlborough, 
has been known ever since the old coaching days more 
particularly as the valley of the “Grey Wethers” (from 
the resemblance of the stones in the distance to a flock of 
sheep). Lockeridge Dean lies rather to the south, and in 
spite of much destruction of the stones in past days, still 
contains perhaps the largest “Sarsens” now to be found 
im situ anywhere. It was from this neighbourhood, perhaps 
from this spot, that the great Sarsen monoliths of Stonehenge 
doubtless came (for Sarsens do not now exist, and never 
could have existed in any number, on Salisbury Plain), as 
well as those of the Avebury circles near at hand. 
For many generations these stones, scattered widely over 
the Downs, have been broken up and used for building and 
other purposes, mainly of a local character, but the “quarrying” 
(if the term is permfssible) has not been on such a scale as to 
make any appreciable difference in the appearance of the 
