THE BATH ROAD 59 



So political celebrities advertised themselves before 

 the Daily Telegraph was, or editors of fashionable papers 

 wanted copy — but I must get on to Devizes. 



The fourteen miles odd between this town and Marl- 

 borough is sacred to the antiquary, who delights to dig 

 up mounds on plains, and discover two human skeletons 

 or more in a sitting posture, and two laid horizontally as 

 the case may be, which is what was done at West 

 Kennett, four and a quarter miles down the road. At 

 this West Kennett, to complete the celebrity of the spot, 

 is made and stored the celebrated West Kennett Ale, 

 and that it is also drunk here in large quantities, is not 

 beyond the pale of reasonable human hope. The 

 travellers on the once thronged Bath Road, now as 

 deserted, alas ! as the old Roman highway which here 

 coincides with it, took a good deal of this ale, 1 suspect 

 (if it was brewed in those days, of which fact I am not 

 certain), to fortify themselves against down air ; and at 

 the same time no doubt some antiquary, perched on the 

 box-seat with pince-nez pinched firmly on red nose, ob- 

 served Silbury Hill immediately on the left of the road, 

 which some sages suppose to be posterior to the Roman 

 invasion, and some anterior to it, but which is the biggest 

 artificial hill in Europe, and is indeed " very fine and 

 large." 



Now Beckhampton Inn looms in sight. Here the 

 Beaufort Hunt, and all the principal coaches changed 

 horses, passengers refreshed the inner man, and the 

 different roads to Bath diverged. The Beaufort Hunt 

 and other fast coaches going by Cherhill, Calne and 

 Chippenham, making the whole distance from town 105 

 miles 6 furlongs ; other coaches less known taking the 

 next shortest cut by Sandy Lane and Bowdon Hill to 

 Lacock. Here there is an Abbey with a romance at- 

 tached to it, which tells how a young lady, discoursing 

 one night to her lover from the battlements of the Abbey 

 church, though strictly forbidden to do so by her papa, 

 remarked " I will leap down to you " (which was surely 



