MARLEOROUGH. XXxi. 



had come with the party as guide in this unique village, which has 

 sprung up within the stone circle of the prehistoric temple. On the 

 club leaving the church he led them to see the manor house of the 

 16th Century, built by one Dunch in 1556, and told the family history 

 connected with it. 



The Temple of Avebury. 

 The Excavations. 



Tea at the Red Lion was a welcome refreshment. Afterwards the 

 party set out to walk round the earthwork. Mr. Gray led them along 

 the huge vallum to a convenient spot overlooking the section of the 

 fosse in which the excavations were carried out from 1908 onwards. 



Mr. Gray delivered a concise address, giving first a general des- 

 cription of Avebury, and then detailing the course of the excavations. 

 The circumference of the place, he said was about 4,400 feet, roughly 

 three-quarters of a mile, and its diameter from north to south 1,400 

 feet — four times that of Stonehenge. The stones, while none of them 

 were quite so large as at Stonehenge, differed also in being rough un- 

 tooled sarsens, whereas at Stonehenge all the stones were dressed, and 

 other hard stones were to be found besides sarsens. That great em- 

 bankment, of a vertical height of 31 feet, enclosed an area of 28 acres 

 and a half. They would notice a rather unusual thing — that the fosse 

 was inside the vallum instead of outside. Next, lying just inside 

 the foss, were the remaining stones of the great outer circle, which 

 enclosed two other circles of stones, the northern and the southern. 

 He pointed to five stones (two still upright and three prone) 

 forming an arc of the southern inner circle, in the centre of which, in 

 Stukeley's time, was one large monolith. In the centre of the corres- 

 ponding northern inner circle was the so-called " Cove," formed of 

 three stones, of which two were still standing, roughly at right angles, 

 one of the stones being 20 feet high, the tallest of those remaining. 

 Although Lord Avebury, the owner of the part of the work in which 

 the excavations had as yet been carried out, held the opinion that the 

 whole place was one vast cemetery, yet he himself could not admit 

 that it was ever used for sepulchral purposes, since, as far as he knew, 

 no interment had been found there. What, then, was the purpose of 

 the place ? Nobody knew. It could not have been for defence, for 

 in that case the fosse would have been outside the vallum instead of 

 inside. He had heard suggestions that it might have been a temple in 

 connection with the observation of the sun, moon, and stars, which 

 seemed probable. There was originally a long avenue of stones 

 approaching Avebury from the south, and by the turnpike cottage 

 they saw the last stone. Of this Kennet-avenue only 10 stones re- 

 mained ; but a hundred years ago Lord Wiuchilsea counted no less 



