377 



By the Eev. Bryan King, M.A. 



AN ON JACKSON, in his valuable notes to Aubrey's 

 *jt i$ " Wiltshire Collections/' is led to contrast the plans and 

 descriptions of Avebury and its avenues as given by Aubrey and 

 Stukeley respectively. 



He states that the ground-plans of Aubrey were drawn seventy 

 years before those of Stukeley, and from this and other circumstances 

 draws the inference of the greater authority of those of Aubrey. 



This inference seriously affects the question of the existence at 

 any period of an avenue of stones leading in the direction of Beck- 

 hampton corresponding to that which leads to Kennet. 



Thus, Mr. Jackson writes (p. 325), " of a stone avenue leading 

 from Abury to Beckhampton (which is the great point in dispute) 

 Aubrey says not one word. He mentions the three gigantic blocks 

 of stone called ' The Devil's Coits/ (now the Long Stones) which 

 lay on that side of Abury and of which two are still left standing ; 

 but no other, great or small, standing upright anywhere near them. 

 If on that side of Abury there were any not upright, but lying 

 about or half-buried in the ground, it is clear that they did not 

 attract his eye as stones that had ever formed part of the general 

 structure. St ukeley's statement, on the other hand, is that coming 

 out of the earthwork on the road towards Beckhampton he saw 

 stones, some lying in the very road, some in the pastures ; and that 

 he was told of others that had been broken up in the fields all within 

 a few years prior to 1722. Upon what certainly must be called 

 very slender evidence, he created an avenue of two hundred stones 

 running some way beyond Beckhampton and ending in a point upon 

 the open downs. . . The narrowing of the latter part of this 

 supposed avenue, and its ending in a point, are admitted by Stukeley 



