42 ARBOR LOW EXCAVATIONS IN I9OI AND J902. 



vallum 10 feet (3-05 m.) wide; at Stennis, in the Orkneys,* 

 where the vallum is 3 feet (91 cm.) high; and at the neigh- 

 bouring Ring of Brogar, where the ditch remains, but the wall, 

 which may have been only a stockade, has disappeared, t The 

 monument of Arbor Low is very similar in design to " Arthur's 

 Round Table," in Cumberland,! excepting that the vallum of 

 the latter is divided from the fosse by a berme. Arthur's 

 Table, however, does not include any stones. % 



Arbor Low is situated in the parish of Bakewell, from which 

 town it is barely five miles distant in a direct Line, in a south- 

 westerly direction. The nearest railway station, however, is 

 Parsley Hay, only one mile to the north-west, on the Buxton 

 and Ashbourne branch of the London and North Western 

 Railway. The monument, which is situated on a long ridge of 

 hill, nearly 1,200 feet above the sea-level, commands a most 

 extensive view towards Buxton and Bakewell, in northerly and 

 easterly directions. 



The operations extended over fourteen working days, 8th to 

 23rd August of 1 90 1, and ten days in May- June of 1902. The 

 working plan (page 41) was begun on the first days.g A 

 square, 320 feet (98 m.) on each side, was formed round 

 the vallum, enclosing an area of 2^ acres, and the plan of the 

 stones was begun to a scale of 240 to 1 ; in other words, 

 20 feet to an inch. The exact position of each stone was 

 taken by means of bearings and triangulation from fixed points, 

 checked by cross-measurements. The plateau on which the 

 megaliths lie averages 160 feet (49 m.) in diameter and 

 is encompassed by a fosse. It will be seen that the figure 

 formed by the ring of stones is pear-shaped, the bottom of the 

 pear to the south-east, the stalk end to the north-west. It 

 consists of rough unhewn slabs of mountain limestone, of which 

 many of the largest average 10 feet (3-05 m.) in length by 



* Figured in Fergussun's Rude Stone Monuments, 242. 

 t Fergusson's Rude Stone Monuments, 241-2. 

 J Op. cit., 128. 



§ The Plan has necessarily been reduced for these pages to about one- 

 fourth. — Ed. 



