By the Bev. J. L. Boss. 225 



should not have observed many things afterwards discovered by 

 Stukeley is not surprising, as he made a very cursory survey of 

 Abury at least, and formed very naturally an imperfect conception 

 of the original shape of the building : nor is it at all matter of sur- 

 prise that he should not have had made any mention of the avenue 

 to Beckhampton, as that important feature of Stukeley's ground- 

 plan, namely, the serpent's tail, was then much less perceptible than 

 the other avenue or the head of the serpent terminating on Over- 

 ton Hill, owing to its passing through fields and meadows employed 

 as arable and pasture land, through which no public road had been 

 formed, and from which the stones of this approach or avenue had 

 been necessarily removed. If Aubrey had leisure or inclination 

 to make the enquiries which his successor Stukeley afterwards did 

 during a series of visits extending over several years, he would 

 then have heard something of the doings of certain un-antiquarian 

 farmers, as Fowler and Green, who were even still more successful 

 than the Herostratus Tom Robinson in destroying almost every 

 vestige of the Beckhampton avenue at least, with the exception of 

 two of the largest stones still existing, nearly midway between the 

 circles and Beckhampton, where it was supposed, upon good 

 grounds, to terminate. Any one who has remarked the cottages 

 and walls of premises in the upper village of Abury, must have 

 presumed that there had been either some considerable quarry in 

 the neighbourhood from which these stones were then taken, (for 

 the buildings elsewhere are usually of brick), or must incline to 

 Stukeley's opinion that they were formed from a large assortment 

 or collection of stones, similar in all respects to those used in the 

 circles and Kennet avenue, namely, the Grey- Wethers, most pro- 

 bably conveyed from the valley of stones on the road between 

 Abury and Marlborough. If moreover it can be proved, as is ad- 

 mitted, that the Kennet avenue from its gyrations and other pecu- 

 liar features, is the head of the serpent emerging from the circles 

 at Abury, there is then a very high degree of probability, 

 amounting I conceive to moral certainty, that the other avenue, 

 partly observed and partly traced by Stukeley, was the serpent's 

 tail, or very unnecessarily and unreasonably the ancient and wise 



