234 



€%Uuh farm a ftote=§oolt feg j&ir % C. poart. 



HIS book, now in the County Library, at Devizes, takes, in 

 part, the form of a diary of some of his excursions on the 

 Wiltshire Downs. It does not appear to have been regularly kept, 

 and notes of different years are entered without order, at opposite 

 ends of the same book. 



The extracts here given may be valuable as containing notices of 

 antiquities which have since been destroyed or effaced by the pro- 

 gress of agriculture and railways. Many expressions occur showing 

 the intense pleasure which the writer experienced in those rides on 

 the Wiltshire Downs. To him they must have been particularly 

 enjoyable, associated as they specially were in his case, with the 

 history and remains of the ancient inhabitants. 



" Sunday, 4 October. From Bath to Devizes in a chaise. From Devizes to 

 Marlborough on horseback — came to the Roman road leading from Bath to Spinse 

 or Speen, a little on this side Beckhampton Inn — followed it to Silbury Hill 

 which it leaves a little to the left — from thence into the turnpike, and to 

 Overton down, where the ridge is again very visible — this hill is covered with many 

 large and fine tumuli. In the adjoining field visited the few remains now left 

 of the celebrated stones called the Grey- Wethers, from whence Stonehenge dates 

 its origin. One year will scarcely elapse before the traveller may justly exclaim 

 ' Stat nominis umbra.' The larger masses are employed in building, and the 

 smaller in mending the roads. The line of the Roman causeway is I think 

 nearly certain to the top of the hill overlooking Fifield. Quere did it then cross 

 the stream ? I think not— the ground being firmer on the side of the present 

 turnpike though somewhat deviating from the direct line. 



" Monday, 5 October. Sessions opened. Walked with Rev. Mr. Francis, of 

 Mildenhall, to a spot where several remarkable Roman antiquities have been 

 discovered. This field is situated just beyond the first milestone, on the left of 

 the road to London — it is a pasture land and has produced many skeletons — and 

 Roman coins are daily found by the labourers employed in digging and sifting 

 gravel. The field is called St. Margaret's Mead. The Rev. Mr. Francis showed 

 me a great many coins of Diocletian, Antoninus, and others, found here — also 

 fragments of black and red glazed Roman pottery, a small brass key, another 

 article with a grotesque head of an animal — hollow, like a spout — also an inter- 

 ment or sacrifice of the bones of a cock and a cat — the leg with the spur attached 

 to it of the former, and the jaw and teeth of the latter. A most singular vessel 



