Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c. 499 



historical writers." He finds place names in the Isle of Wight (Yar- 

 mouth, Yaverland, Rue Street near Carisbrooke, Carisbrooke itself = 

 " Caer Ebroac " or " Caer Euroc," and St. Euriens Chapel), which he 

 connects with the Relgo-Gallic Euroviciaiis, the people whose capital 

 was Evreux. In Arreton Down near Newport, Isle of Wight, he finds 

 the true site of the " Mountain of Killaraus, or Hill of Arus," erron- 

 eouly placed by the early Chroniclers in Ireland. Accordingly he 

 explores Arreton Down and finds there on Mesley Down " a large cir- 

 cular ring, having, as these religious rings usually have, a bank outside 

 the ditch ... a road had been made at some remote period from 

 the western side of the ring ... a small -portion of this turf having 

 been removed, the road itself was found paved with closely packed 

 flints, into which two deep and well defined ruts were cut, the flints 

 being driven downwards by some heavy weights . . . the old way 

 had been most carefully graded and directed, so as to secure as far as 

 possible the same easy descent and ran direct to the tidal water close 

 by the Newport Railway Station." At this point the author adds " The 

 day had yielded every satisfaction, the local evidence coinciding in 

 every way with my anticipations," and having once settled that Stone- 

 henge formerly stood on Arreton Down, it is quite easy to see how the 

 stones were brought down the ancient road, causing the existing cart 

 ruts, to the sea, whence they were conveyed in boats up the Salisbury 

 Avon to Durrington Walls, the site of an ancient Celtic town, whence 

 a graded road may be traced to Stonehenge. But how did the stones 

 get to Arreton Down 1 Africa is out of the question, but Walter de 

 Mapes says "i Spain." The nearest point of land on the Erench coast 

 is the mouth of the Seine, " Sequana, Sequan, or Senan." This is not 

 so very unlike " Spain." Clearly this was the region to examine. 

 " Bolbec — Baalbac ! What visions of Phoenicians and their worship of 

 the great Sun-God immediately rush to the mind ! Can it indeed be 

 possible that here may be found the source of the great Sun-Temple of 

 Stonehenge 1 " In that neighbourhood is an insulated hill called Le 

 Platon. The author instinctively felt that this was the spot he was 

 looking for, and sure enough on the summit, within a lady's private 

 grounds, he found "a ring of earthwork practically identical with that 

 of Stonehenge and Arreton or Mesley Down." By the side of the road 

 up the hill. was a large stone, a fragment of which "has been pro- 

 nounced by Professor W. Gowland to have many points of similarity 

 to the Sarsens of Stonehenge," In the side of the hill, too, the author 

 discovered and explored a series of caves or chambers opening one out 

 of another and forming a circle in the bowels of the earth, very care- 

 fully made, the piers being of " tufa-like Caux stone intermixed with 

 flints, layers of flint nodules, bands of more or less dense calcareous 

 stone," &c, clearly originally a catacomb. Are there similar chambers 

 under Arreton Down or Stonehenge 1 for surely it is sufficiently clear 

 that the latter structure first stood on the hill of Le Platon before it 

 was removed to Arreton Down. Q.E.D. 



This paper was to a great extent reprinted in The Salisbury Times-, 

 Eeb. 25th, 1910, and Sir Edmund Antrobus, Messrs. T. H. Baker, Percy 



