By William Long, Esq., M.A. 327 



and a smoother side, care was taken to place tlie most sightly side 

 inwards, towards the included area." "They set the largest and 

 handsomest stones in the more conspicuous parts of the temple, 

 which is that southward, and about the entrances of the two 

 avenues." 



The Valluim. 

 The vallum or rampart enclosing the great circle at Abury, and 

 which, unlike military works, has the fosse adjoining it on the in- 

 side,^ contains, according to Sir Richard Hoare, an area of 28 acres 

 and 27 perches, and has a circumference of 4,442 feet.^ It is not 

 quite circular, being from the Kennet entrance to the opposite side 

 1170 feet, and from the Beckhampton entrance to its opposite side 

 1260 feet wide. It rises 34 feet above the surrounding field and 

 descends into a fosse 9 feet wide at the bottom, at a depth of 33 feet 

 below the level of the meadows in the interior. The whole slope 

 of the vallum on the inside is upwards of 70 feet, and about half- 

 way between the top of the mound and the bottom of the fosse is a 

 flat ledge, 12 feet wide, supposed to have been for spectators at the 

 public festivals. In making its circuit, the visitor will come upon 

 a portion near the church which has been obliterated. Dr. Stukeley 

 says respecting it, " When the Lord Stowell, who own'd the manor 

 of Abury, levell'd the vallum on that side of the town next the 

 church, where the barn now stands, the workmen came to the 

 original surface of the ground, which was easily discernible by a 

 black stratum of mold upon the chalk. Here they found large 

 quantities of buck's horns, bones, oyster shells, and wood coals. 

 The old man who was employ'd in the work says, there was the 

 quantity of a cart-load of the horns, that they were very rotten, that 

 there were very many burnt bones among them. They were the 

 remains of sacrifices."^ 



' At Stonehenge the ditch is on the oiitside of the vallum. 

 ^ " The coini)ass of this, on the outside, Mr. Roger Gale and I measured about 

 4800 feet, August IGtli, 1721." Stukeley's Abury, p. 20. Aubrey's plan of 

 the vallum, taken with the plane table, is more correct than Stukeley's, and 

 nearly resembles that of Mr. Crocker. " It was projected " he says, "by the 

 halfe inch scale." ^ 



* Stukeley's Abury, p. 27. 



