ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



in form and with a diameter of about 1200 feet. 

 Within this is a ditch, and close on the inner edge 

 of this was a circle of about a hundred upright 

 stones. Within this circle were two pairs of con- 

 centric circles with their centres slightly east of the 

 north-and-south diameter of the great circle. The 

 diameters of the outer circles of these two pairs are 

 350 and 325 feet respectively. In the centre of 

 the northern pair was a cover-slab supported by 

 three uprights, and in the centre of the southern a 

 single menhir. All the stones used are sarsens, 

 such as are strewn everywhere over the district. 



An avenue flanked by two rows of stones ran 

 in a south-easterly direction from the rampart 

 towards the village of Kennet for a distance of 

 about 1430 yards in a straight line. 



At a distance of 1200 yards due south from 

 Avebury Circle stands the famous artificial mound 

 called Silbury Hill. It is 552 feet in diameter, 

 130 in height, and has a flat top 102 feet across. 

 A pit was driven down into its centre in 1777, 

 and in 1849 a trench was cut into it from the south 

 side to the centre, but neither gave any result. 

 It is quite possible that there are burials in the 

 mound, whether in megalithic chambers or not. 



South-west of Avebury is Hakpen Hill, where 

 there once stood two concentric ellipses of stones. 

 A straight avenue is said to have run from these 

 in a north-westerly direction. Whether these 

 three monuments near Avebury have any con- 



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