Ixxviii. PORTESHAM AND BRIDEHEAD DISTRICT. 



the relics of antiquity in Dorset, and in 1873 wrote some lines 

 upon the " Union of Hearts " Roman tesselated floor unearthed 

 on the site of Dorchester Prison.] INIr. Warne evidently did not 

 like this " restoration; " but for himself, proceeded Dr. March, he 

 Mas not sure that it was not a good thing to attempt to restore 

 one such dolmen to a perfect condition in a district where there 

 were so many imperfect. 



The Hon. Treasurer enquired whether Dr. Colley March 

 thought that perhaps " Helstone " was a name applied to the 

 group from one menhir standing some Avay off, and forming the 

 gnomon of an imaginary sundial, like the "Friar's Heel" at 

 Stonehenge. 



Dr. Colley March answered that he thought that the circle 

 was called Helstone from the flat covering stone. " Hel " or 

 "heel" still meant a covering. There was an expression 

 " heeling potatoes," meaning to cover them in. In Devon, the 

 covering slabs of a grave are called hellan-stones. As for the 

 " Friar's Heel," that was the only stone at Stonehenge which had 

 not been touched by tools — and many careful observers thought 

 that it had been placed there since the building of Stonehenge, 

 and that it had a memorial intention. 



The Valley of Stones. 



After visiting a typical stone circle, in which 13 stones still 

 remained, while three lay on the other side of a hedge close by, 

 and a brief inspection of a collapsed dolmen, the drive was 

 continued to a point from which the party obtained a splendid 

 view of the Valley of Stones, with its nearly complete circle, and 

 they observed the clear markings of the ancient rectangular 

 enclosures with which the steep sides of the valley are covered — 

 evidence of habitation and use by a considerable pastoral 

 population in dimly-remote times, perhaps prehistoric, though it 

 is hard to define any period, even approximately, for this most 

 interesting occupation. 



