309 



By William Long, Esa., M.A. 

 |TIEE,E is no district in the British Isles of greater interest 

 to the antiquary than the tract of country between Devizes 

 and Marlborough. Within it may be seen the Wansdyke, that last 

 and largest of the boundaries between the Belgic and aboriginal 

 tribes, stretching for miles along the summit of the hiUs ; earth- 

 works of various forms on the adjoining slopes; barrows large and 

 small, long and round; the remains of a British settlement on 

 Huish Hill; the camps of Oldbury, Rybury, Knap-hiU, and Mar- 

 tin's-hill ; a British trackway, which at a subsequent period formed 

 a part of the Icknield way;^ the Eoman road from Bath, which, 

 after making use of the fosse of the "Wansdyke, traverses the open 

 downs in its course towards Cunetio^ and Londinium ; the gigantic 

 hill of Silbury; and lastly, one of the oldest,^ most extensive, and 

 most interesting reKcs of antiquity we possess, — the remains of the 

 temple of Abury. 



The pretty village of Abury or Avebury, within the parochial 



' Dr. Guest on the Four Eoman Ways, p. 13 and 22 (Archaeol Journal No. 54). 



* 'Cunetio' is evidently the Latin fonn of the word 'Kennet,' or ' Cunnet' as 

 Stukcley says it was called by tlie country people in his time. 



' The temple at Stanton Drew is supposed by many to be of older date than 

 that at Abury. The temple which appears to correspond more nearly than any 

 other in character and features, (being far inferior in size,) with the gigantic 

 monument in Wiltshire, is that of Arbor Lowe in Derbyshire. It is circular, 

 or rather elliptical : has a ditch six yards wide, within a high vallum : the area, 

 within the ditch, fifty yards in diameter : a largo circle of about 30 huge un- 

 hewn stones : an inner circle of smaller ones (douhtful), and near the centre three 

 larger ones. The circxunference of the vallum about 270 yards. There are two 

 entrances, N. and S. : and about a quarter of a mile oil' towards the west is a 

 large conical tumidus called "Gib Ilill" connected with the vallum of tho 

 temple by a rampire of earth running in a serpentine direction. See " Bateman's 

 Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire, 1848, p. 109." For a suggestion as 

 to tho origin of the names Arbor and Abury, see a Noto further ou. 



