200 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 
and, conclusively, opposite, ‘Pure idiocy’(Fig. 3) Yet 
the same intolerant man discovered a forgotten 
stone circle. 
The writer also possesses Passmore’s copy of the 
first editions of Stukeley’s Stonehenge, 1740, and 
Abury, 1743, bound together. In that dual volume 
Passmore’s bookplate displays a mini-gallery of 
urns, a Southern beaker, china, porcelain plates, 
and a hand-axe. The majority of the pieces were 
presented to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (see 
paper by Phillips in this volume). 
From 1883 onwards Passmore contributed to 
this magazine on a pot-pourri of topics. As early as 
1898, WANHM 30, 91, 303, he was proudly 
displaying his treasured objects to members: local 
antiquities, stone implements, Samian_ ware, 
painted Roman plaster, Saxon urns and a 
spearhead, a blue glass necklace, amber beads, 
pack-horse bells, a man-trap and a Belgic urn. 
In WANHM 42 he wrote about Wansdyke and 
the controversial ‘stone circle’ — which it is not — at 
Langdean Bottom. In WANHM 51, 432, he 
discussed a pterodactyl bone; in WANHM S53 long 
barrows, round barrows and Roman buildings. 
There were idiosyncrasies. In WANHM 44, 1927, 
76 the editor noted that in the Wilts Gazette of 
October 7, 1926 Passmore argued that at 
Stonehenge the Aubrey Holes, the stone circle and 
trilithons ‘were really intended to contain wooden 
posts to support a roof’. 
The contributions continued: WANHM 46 
about Luckington, Roman coins, and a Saxon mint. 
WANHM 47, 493 reported that he took a plaster 
model to Wayland’s Smithy for Society members to 
see at a visit in August, 1936. In WANHM 50, 1944, 
292, he wrote about a human skull filled with lead 
in Stratton St. Margaret church dug up ‘years ago’. 
In WANAM S51, 1947, 118, the topic was the slitting 
of cows’ ears; WANHM 52, 394, a Roman discus; 
and, finally in WANHM 53, 1950, 259, the spurious 
relics of witches found in Wiltshire. It was his final 
contribution. In WANHM 54, 1952, 464 there was a 
rather terse announcement that he had resigned 
from the Society. The chairman ‘wanted to mention 
the severing of Mr. Passmore’s long association 
with the Society. How much Wiltshire archaeology 
owed to his labours only those could appreciate who 
turned to the volumes of the Magazine and read his 
communications over nearly fifty years’. Six years 
later he died.* 
By a megalithic coincidence, of all these notes 
and articles his very first contribution had been the 
note in WANHM 27, 1893, about the ‘hitherto 
undescribed stone circle’ at Coate. In the short 
paper that followed in WANHM 27, 1894, 171-4, he 
reported the discovery of the tumbled ring at Day 
House Farm NE and included a plan of eight half- 
buried stones forming two-thirds of a circle that 
had been disturbed and damaged by the erection of 
a rick- and cow-yards to its west. 
Some quarter of a mile to the south-west near 
Coate Reservoir were three more large tumbled 
sarsens, the southern arc of a second ring, Day 
House Farm SW. Alongside the road passing Day 
House Farm was a line of five widely separated 
stones that Passmore suggested could have been an 
‘avenue’ approaching the first circle. He ended by 
mentioning the erstwhile circle at Broome and a 
possible megalithic ring at Hodson just over a mile 
SSW of Day House Farm. It also had a ‘stone row’ 
near it. 
It was a scanty report but until today that was 
almost all that was known about these forgotten 
sites. It is a considerable benefit to prehistoric 
studies not only in Wiltshire but to stone circle 
research generally that the purchase of Passmore’s 
Notebooks allows those data to be considerably 
augmented. 
NOTE. In the quoted passages from those 
Notebooks that follow numbers in square brackets [ ] 
either refer to his pages, e.g. [p.14] or Passmore’s 
own insertions in the books. Any remark in round 
brackets ( ) is an explanatory interpolation by the 
writer. To make the descriptions of the various sites 
easier to follow they have been arranged in 
alphabetical order: Coate Reservoir; Day House 
Farm NE; Day House Farm SW; Fir Clump; 
Hodson; and Swindon Old Church. 
STONE CIRCLE EXTRACTS 
FROM THE NOTEBOOKS 
OF A. D. PASSMORE 
Coate Reservoir 
SU 17. 82. Passmore, Notebook 1, [p.29b]. At the 
end of Coate Reservoir there are [what to] a lot of 
sarsens of large size and from their positions I think 
they are the remains of a double circle, one within 
the other like the one at Winterbourne [They seem 
to] There is also a double line leading up to them 
about 400 yards long. All these stones are in the 
[p.30] bed of the reservoir under high water mark 
and when the Reservoir [was dug] they were [rolled 
from their proper] [positions but] probably moved 
a bit out of their original position. 
