January i6, 190SJ 



jVA TURE 



249 



XOTES OX AXCIEXT BRITISH MO.XLMENTS. 



IV. 



-Avenue 



T ILW'E measured several avenues since " Stone- 

 •l- henge " was published, and I have studied others 

 (if which the orientation could be determined bv the 

 Ordnance maps. Many of them have been found to 

 have had the same astronomical use which had been 

 ■-ugg^estcd in those measured on Dartmoor. The 

 lonj^est avenue I have seen is at Avebury — the Kennet 

 Avenue — which, in Stukeley's time, was more than a 

 mile long. Associated with it is the Beckhainpton 

 Avenue. These avenues must have been very im- 

 posing parts of the complete temple when it was in 

 full use. Avebury is such a mass of ruins that it is 

 difficult to reconstruct it in the mind's eye in its 

 entirety, but some parts of it, considered by them- 

 ■-(■Ives, present no difficulty. Mr. R. H. ("aird, of 

 Devizes, has twice enabled my wife and myself to visit 

 the region by driving us from Devizes in his motor- 

 car, and these visits gave us time 

 enough to see that the Beckhamp- 

 ton .Avenue and the remains of 

 the Cove were both oriented to 

 the May sunrise, were, in fact, 

 probably closely associated in the 

 May ceremonials, the avenue 

 abutting on the north circle, in 

 the centre of which the remain- 

 ing gigantic stones of the cove 

 still stand. 



The theoretical conditions for 

 the azimuth of the May sunrise at 

 Avebury (lat. 51° 30', variation 

 16° 48' W. in 1906), are, with 2' 

 of limb showing : 



N. 62° E. with sea hurizin 

 63° 40' ,, hills i" figh 



A rough measureinent on the spot 

 gave me N. 65° E. for the out- 

 look of the cove, the horizon 

 being about 2° high, and on the 

 i-inch Ordnance the line joining 

 the two large monoliths at the .^ 



west end of the Beckhampton 

 A\enue and the cove gives N. 64- 

 1-". Further, this line studied on 

 the 25-inch map passes close to 

 the stones indicated by Stukeley, ~ 



who expressly says that he saw 



the remains of the avenue. I give I 



hi-- description. - 



" The Beckhampton .\venue goes out of Abury 

 town at the west point, and proceeds bv the south side 

 of the churchyard. Two stones lie by the parsonage 

 gate on the right hand. Those opposite to them, on 

 the left hand, in a pasture, were taken away in 1702, 

 as marked in the ground-plan of .Aburv. Reuben 

 llorsal remembers three standing in the pasture. One 

 now lies in the floor of the house in the churchyard. 

 .'v little farther one lies at the corner of the next house 

 on the right hand, by the lane turning off to the right 

 1(1 the bridge, .\nother was broke in pieces, to build 

 that house with in 1714. Two more lie on the left 

 hand opposite. It (i.e. the .Avenue) then passes the 

 beck south of the bridge. Most of the stones here- 

 .•ibouts have been made use of about the bridge, and 

 the causeway leading to it." 



Smith's account goes on : — 



" Moreover, we have some evidence of the exist- 



1 Continued from p. 152. 



- Avebury desrribed. p m, quo'ed in Smith's " Biilish and Rcmin Anti- 

 quities of North Wiltshire," p. 146. 



ence of the avenue in this direction, in the fragments 

 of sarsen stones which mav still be seen there, as the 

 Rev. Bryan King has pointed out in his note on this 

 subject, to which I have already called attention ; ' 

 therein he says : ' Beginning with the walls of the 

 churchyard and of the church, and of the manor-house, 

 with its enclosures, in an entire length of full half-a- 

 mile from the earthwork on the west side of .Aveburv 

 to the corner of the large field in which the two 

 large stones near Beckhampton now stand, there are 

 very few lineal yards which are not occupied bv cause- 

 way, walls or cottages, all formed of sarsen stone, 

 sufficient and more than sufficient, to absorb all the 

 stones of the Beckhampton Avenue ' : and then he 

 goes on to enumerate the several stones, or portions 

 of stones, which still exist, and which are apparently 

 the remnants of those described by .Stukeley." 



On the accompanying plan of .\vcburv, photo- 

 graphed from the 25-inch Ordnance maji, 1 have indi- 

 cated ttie two circles as roughlv determined from the 



h 



^^: 



lu. II. — .Avebury, showing the circles and avenues. 



remaining stones. It will be seen that the May-year 

 avenue line is directed nearly, but not quite, to the 

 centre of the northern circle, the cove occupying the 

 centre itself, and so blocking the view from the avenue 

 or processional road to the .S.W. 



I next come to the south-eastern or ' Kennet 

 -Avenue.' Stukeley- savs of it : " The Kennet .Avenue 

 consisted originally of one hundred stones on each 

 side, reaching from the vallum of Abury town to the 

 circular work on Overton Hill. Mr. Smith, living 

 here, informed me that when he was a schoolboy the 

 Kennet Avenue was entire from end to end. The 

 stones composing it were of all shapes, sizes, and 

 heights that happened, altogether rude. Some we 

 measured six feet thick, sixteen in circumference. If 

 the stones were of a flattish make, the broadest dimen- 

 sion was set in the line of the avenue, and the most 

 sightly side of the stone inward. The founders were 



^ Wiltshire Magazine, vol. xviii., pp. J77-383. 



- Avebury described bv Stukeley, quoted in " British and Roman 



ntiquit es of North Wiltshire," p. 145. 



NO. 1994, VOL. •J'j'\ 



