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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 







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Fig. i. The Lukis section of Silbury Hill, 6th August 1849 (Guernsey Museum) 



According to Merewether ( 1 85 1 ) 'it was impossible 

 not to be impressed with the idea that there must 

 be a cavity above'. Merewether went on to state 

 that this phenomenon was later investigated, but 

 nothing was found. This detail may have been 

 recorded by Lukis in the missing notes, but it seems 

 more likely that as a visitor Lukis had left the site 

 before the absence of this deposit was discovered. 

 The drawing was perhaps then left in Guernsey, 

 when Lukis returned to Wiltshire to take up his post 

 as vicar of Great Bedwyn. 



Of topical interest is a dotted line Lukis had 

 drawn in the top of Silbury, indicating that the 

 entrance to the 1776 shaft was open in 1849 to a 

 depth equivalent in scale to that which opened up 

 in May 2000. The suggestion of the entrance to the 

 shaft remaining open at this time is reinforced by 

 an anonymous late 1 9th century drawing showing 

 what appears to be an open hole adjacent to a large 

 spoil heap (Figure 2). According to Merewether, 

 mounds of spoil still remained on top of the hill in 

 1849 that the miners of the 1776-7 shaft had not 

 bothered to throw back in. The view of Silbury 

 included by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in Ancient 

 Wiltshire also shows a large spoil heap atop the hill, 

 although it could represent an abandoned smaller 

 excavation (Figure 3). 



Added to air photographs taken throughout the 

 1930s by Major Allen, and now in a collection in 

 the Ashmolean Museum (Figure 4), the dotted line 

 adjoining the summit in the Lukis drawing indicates 



that the 'hole' in the top of Silbury has remained 

 present to varying levels since 1777, and was finally 

 filled-in to near surface level in 1936. This material 

 subsequently began to disappear, and in 1963 

 Silbury was capped with chicken wire to prevent 

 what was thought of as rabbit damage. Ironically it 

 was this wire, which it seems was topped with soil 

 and reseeded, that prevented electrical surveys by 



Fig. 2. Silbury Hill in an anonymous late 19th century 

 drawing, showing spoil heap on the summit 



