278 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 
... It would be a delightful experience to visit you 
and take advantage of your offer of hospitality but 
unfortunately after a very long and somewhat 
adventurous life am bound by the fact that an escort 
has to be found to take me around in which case am 
not a free man and have to conform to the 
movements of my _ escort... (Passmore ASH, 
November 6, 1954). 
Having never married, Passmore had 
contemplated the future of his collection since 
about 1930. Most of his archaeological objects were 
eventually donated to the Antiquities Department 
at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 1955 (the 
circumstances of which are discussed further 
below). Passmore offered his house and land to 
Oxford University, to use as a hostel or 
accommodation for students. The University 
declined this offer, apparently because Callas House 
had fallen into a state of disrepair and required 
almost complete renovation. 
Passmore’s eyesight continued to deteriorate in 
1956, and at this time he seems to have become 
fairly bad-tempered and forgetful, exhibiting signs 
of mild senility. In January 1958 he visited the 
Ashmolean Museum to see his beloved collection, 
almost certainly for the last time, as he died at 
home, in Callas House, on 6 March 1958. 
A.D. PASSMORE IN THE FIELD 
Passmore recorded his archaeological observations 
in an unpublished manuscript almost 700 pages 
long. Although object provenances are not as 
precise as modern standards demand, most include 
directions to the find spot within a farm, or even a 
field, that could easily be matched to at least a four 
or six-figure national grid reference. His notebook 
also contains information about his daily activities, 
so that, in effect, it describes the history of 20th- 
century archaeology in Wiltshire.’ The following 
extract 1s typical (Figure 5). 
Coate & Broome Stones. 
Old Daniel Skinner of Devizes Road can well 
remember the breaking up of the large standing 
stones at Broome Farm (Longstone Field). He 
remembers some which were very white stone 
(sarsen) being taken to near Woodstock. He and also 
my father remember one large stone there which had 
what was thought to be the impression of a mans foot 
in it, and the people thought it was the devil’s 
footprint as he walked amongst the stones. 
I may perhaps be accused of seeing circle and 
avenues in all groups of sarsen stones, but I firmly 
believe that a lot of the lines of stones about here were 
deliberately placed in position. There is the part of a 
circle behind the barns on the E side of the Swindon 
Hodson Road just N of the public house. 
Another 1/2 circle by the Roadside opposite 
the Black Horse on the Wroughton — Swindon Road, 
a line of stones in the second park field leading to 
Coate. A long line of big stones 500 yds NE of 
Swindon Christ’s Church and another along the NW 
shore of Coate Reservoir. There are also many stones 
still at Broom. (ADP unpublished 1903, 62 — 63) 
Passmore limited his fieldwork to sites in North 
Wiltshire and the area around Avebury, which was 
of particular interest to him. He wrote, for instance, 
about Kennet Avenue at Avebury: 
Sometime ago I noticed that a lot of small natural 
sarsens were being broken up in the line of the 
Kennett [sic] Avenue, one was somewhat larger & 
stood right on the line. Goddard & I considered it not 
worth troubling about, however someone wrote to 
H.M. Inspector of A.M. and I met he & Captain 
Edwards (boss of Olymphia Agriculture Co) at the 
spot. I suggested that the stone should be buried 
where it is. This is now being done. It is 234 paces S 
of the last remaining stone towards Avebury and 20 
paces E of road (ADP unpublished 1922, 273). 
His fieldwork interest included the _ re- 
investigation of field observations made by earlier 
archaeologists such as William Stukeley, John 
Thurnam, and A.C. Smith. He wrote of examining 
a stone circle near Avebury that had been noted by 
A.C. Smith: 
The stone circle must have been E of the one 
remaining stone, see Falkner’s measurements. Have 
just noticed that the barrow H is a much-ploughed 
long barrow & not a round barrow as thought by 
Smith. It is roughly 150 ft x 72. Found also a new 
round barrow just above Beckhampton, at top of hill 
leading to Avebury, in grass field & almost touching 
the S side of road (by side of footpath). Opened. 
William Pullen, owner of the ‘Sanctuary Field’ where 
the end of the Avenue once stood, tells me that about 
1890 he moved a big stone from this field in the line 
of the Avenue & about half way up, they dug it up and 
pulled it down hill to the south & heaved it into the 
rubbish pit on the SE corner. It is still there but 
covered up. They nearly killed a horse on the job. 
Also in the line of the Avenue in the field bounded by 
the Bath & Avebury roads there is a very big stone, 
