Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c. 159 



The body of the work seems to bear evidence of having been consider- 

 ably inspired by the imaginative work of the Messrs. Hubbard on 

 Neolithic Dewponds and Cattle Ways. It sets out with the assumption 

 that Avebury marks the meeting point of the watersheds of the South 

 and "West and East of England, and also the meeting point of all the 

 most important prehistoric trackways of the South of England, " the 

 centre from which the ancient highways radiate." Now to support this 

 theory there is the Eidgeway — and what else ? There are, it is true, 

 numberless trackways and ditches of more or less importance everywhere 

 on the downs but there is nothing to prove their specific age. The Author 

 indeed, in the remainder of the book wanders cheerfully over the downs 

 noting a barrow here and a "cattle trail'' there, a camp or a set of 

 Lynchetts or a group of Sarsen stones further on, his central idea 

 apparently being that the barrows were placed where they are, as a rule, 

 for landmarks to mark out the course of the ancient ways. Barrows 

 were undoubtedly largely used in Saxon times as boundary marks of 

 parishes, etc., but to assert that they were placed on a particular spot 

 originally as guide posts is quite another thing, though it is true that the 

 idea is not a new one and that Hoare in two or three places in Ancient 

 Wilts suggests the possibility. Barrows certainly are found frequently 

 beside trackways — but it is at least as likely that the barrows were on the 

 ground long before the tracks, which in after days followed the line of 

 the barrows, as that the latter were intentionally placed where they are 

 as sign posts. The writer's facts are not always to be relied on. He 

 speaks for instance of Stukeley as mentioning fourteen Long Barrows near 

 Avebury, whereas, as a matter of fact, he mentions six or possibly seven. 

 The earthworks between Clyffe Pypard and Bupton are dwelt on as 

 marking a prehistoric way up the hill, but nobody knows either the age 

 or the purpose of these irregular works, or can even guess at them, and 

 they may just as well be mediaeval as prehistoric. The Font at Avebury 

 too, is Norman of the 12th Century and not Saxon. The book is well 

 printed and the various plans are good and there is a great deal of some- 

 what discursive information as to the whereabouts of ancient earthworks 

 and modern dewponds — for pace the Messrs. Hubbard — no one has yet 

 brought forward any sufficient evidence that there ever was such a thing 

 as a Neolithic Dewpond on the downs of Wiltshire or elsewhere. 



A long and adverse notice of the book appeared in the Wiltshire 

 Advertiser, May 20th, 1909, under the heading " Archaeology Run Wild," 

 to which the author replies in a letter on June 3rd, " My purpose was to 

 draw attention to certain facts indicating that during the Stone Age there 

 existed in this country a national organisation of a highly developed 

 character with Avebury as its centre. The Guide points out that the 

 great hill ranges radiate from the plains round Avebury, and that lines 

 of travel are to be traced above their watersheds as far as Seaton, in 

 Devonshire, to the sea coast at Norfolk .... and also that these 

 Routes are defended every ten miles or so by similar earthworks to those 

 around Avebury, and that Avebury plain may be considered as the 

 Clapham Junction of the system." 



