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Wanderings in Wessex by Edric Holmes

E >> Edric Holmes >> Wanderings in Wessex




The appearance of Stonehenge has been likened to a herd of elephant
browsing on the Plain. The simile is good and is particularly
applicable to its aspect from the Amesbury road--the least imposing of
the approaches. The straight white highway, and the fact that the
Stones are a little below the observer, detract very much from the
impressiveness of the scene. The usual accompaniments of a visit, a
noisy and chattering crowd of motorists, eager to rush round the
enclosure quickly, to purchase a packet of postcards and be off; the
hut for the sale of the cards, and the absurdly incongruous, but
(alas!) necessary, policeman, go far to spoil the visit for the more
reverent traveller. But if he will go a little way to the south and
watch the gaunt shapes against the sky for a time and thus realize
their utter remoteness from that stream of evanescent mortality
beneath, the unknown ages that they have stood here upon the lonely
waste, the dynasties, nay, the very races, that have come and
conquered and gone, and the almost certainty that the broad metalled
highway which passes close to them will in turn disappear and give
place, while they still stand, to the turf of the great green expanse
around; then the awe that surrounds Stonehenge will be felt and
understood.

The early aspect of Stonehenge was far more elaborate than as we see
it to-day, and the avenues that led to the inner circles and the
smaller and outer rings have to a large extent disappeared. The stones
are enclosed in a circular earthwork 300 feet across. The outer circle
of trilithons, 100 feet in diameter, is composed of monoliths of
sandstone originally four feet apart and thirty in number. Inside this
circle is another of rough unhewn stones of varying shapes and sizes.
Within this again, forming a kind of "holy place," are two
ellipses--the outer of trilithons five in number and the inner of blue
stones of the same geological formation as the rough stones of the
outer circle. Of these there were originally nineteen.

[Illustration: PLAN OF STONEHENGE (RESTORED).]

Near the centre is the so-called "altar stone," over fifteen feet
long; in a line with this, through the opening of the ellipse, is the
"Friar's Heel," a monolith standing outside the circles. The larger
stones or "sarsens" are natural to the Marlborough Downs, but the
unhewn or "blue" stones are mysterious. They are composed of a kind of
igneous rock not found anywhere near Wiltshire. A suggestion by
Professor Judd is that they are ice-borne boulders accidentally
deposited on the Plain during the southward drift of the great ice
cap. One of the sarsen stones is stained with copper oxide, and this
fact has been taken to point to Stonehenge being erected somewhere in
the Bronze Age--that is, not longer ago than 2000 B.C. Excavations
about twenty years ago brought to light a number of stone tools,
fragments of pottery, coins and bones. Belonging to a long period of
time, the finds were inconclusive. It is quite possible that the ring
of rough blue stones were erected by a primitive race of stone men and
that a continuous tradition of sanctity clung to the spot until, in
the time of those heirs and successors of theirs who used bronze
weapons and were acquainted with the rudiments of engineering, the
imposing temple that we call Stonehenge came into being.

It will be well at this point to make brief reference to the
interpretation placed on Stonehenge by various writers. Henry of
Huntingdon (1150) calls it Stanhenges, and terms it the second wonder
of England, but professes entire ignorance of its purpose and marvels
at the method of its construction. Geoffrey of Monmouth (1150)
ascribes its origin to the magic of Merlin who, at the instance of
Aurelius Ambrosius, directed the invasion of Ireland under Uther
Pendragon to obtain possession of the standing stones called the
"Giants' Dance at Killaraus." Victory being with the invaders, the
stones were taken and transported across the seas with the greatest
ease with Merlin's help, and placed on Salisbury Plain as a memorial
to the dead of Britain fallen in battle. Giraldus Cambrensis, Robert
of Gloucester and Leland all give a similar explanation. About 1550,
in Speed's _History of Britain_ and Stow's _Annals_, Merlin and the
invasion of Ireland are dropped and sole credit given to Ambrosius for
the erection. Thomas Fuller (1645) ridicules tradition and consider
the stones to be artificial and probably made of sand (!) on the spot.
Inigo Jones about the same time attributes the erection to the Romans.
His master, James I, having taken a philosophic interest in the
Stones, had desired him to make some pronouncement upon them. This
monarch's grandson, in his flight, is said to have stopped and essayed
to count the stones, with the usual result on the second trial. Pepys
a short time after went "single to Stonehenge, over the Plain and some
great hills even to fright us. Come thither and find them as
prodigious as any tales I ever heard of them, and worth going this
journey to see, God knows what their use was! they are hard to tell
but may yet be told."

About the middle of the eighteenth century the Druid temple legend
began to gain ground and many great men gave support to their
interpretation; it is not yet an exploded idea. Stukely, the
archaeological writer, gives a definite date--460 B.C.--as that of
their erection, and Dr. Johnson, writing to Mrs. Thrale, says:--"It
is, in my opinion, to be referred to the earliest habitations of the
island as a druidical monument of, at least, two thousand years,
probably the most ancient work of man upon the island." In the last
part of this sentence the great doctor either forgets, or shows his
ignorance of, the antiquities at Avebury. Sir Richard Hoare, at the
close of the century, is equally convinced that this explanation is
the right one. Other theories current about this time were--that it
was a monument to four hundred British princes slain by Hengist (472);
the grave of Queen Boadicea; or a Phoenician temple; even a Danish
origin was ascribed to Stonehenge. Perhaps the most curious fact
connected with the literary history of Stonehenge is that it is not
mentioned in the Roman itineraries or by Bede or any other Saxon
writer.

In 1824 the following interesting article by H. Wansey appeared in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_.

"In my early days I frequently visited Stonehenge to make
observations at sunrise as well as by starlight. I noticed that the
lower edge of the impost of the outer circle forms a level
horizontal line in the heavens, equi-distant from the earth, to the
person standing near the centre of the building, about 15 degrees
above the horizon on all sides.

"Stonehenge stands on rather sloping ground; the uprights of the
outer circle are nearly a foot taller on the lower ground or
western side than they are on the eastern, purposely to keep the
horizontal level of the impost, which marks great design and skill.
The thirty uprights of the outer circle are not found exactly of
equal distances, but the imposts (so correctly true on their under
bed) are each of them about 7 cubits in length, making 210 cubits
the whole circle.

"If a person stands before the highest leaning-stone, between it
and the altar stone looking eastward, he will see the pyramidal
stone called the Friar's Heel, coinciding with the top of
Durrington Hill, marking nearly the place where the sun rises on
the longest day. This was the observation of a Mr. Warltire, who
delivered lectures on Stonehenge at Salisbury (1777), and who had
drawn a meridian line on one of the stones. Mr. Warltire asserted
that the stone of the trilithons and of the outer circle are the
stone of the country, and that he had found the place from whence
they were taken, about fourteen miles from the spot northward,
somewhere near Urchfont.

"If the person so standing turns to his left hand, he will find a
groove in one of the 6-foot pillars from top to bottom, which (in
the lapse of so many ages, and swelled by the alternate heat and
moisture of two thousand years, has lost its shape) might have
contained in it a scale of degrees for measuring; and the stone
called the altar[3] would have answered to draw those diagrams on,
and this scale of degrees was well placed for use in such a case,
for one turning himself to the left, and his right hand holding a
compass, could apply it most conveniently. With all this apparatus
the motions of the heavenly bodies might have been accurately
marked and eclipses calculated, a knowledge of which, Caesar says,
they possessed in his time.

"Wood and Dr. Stukeley both make the inner oval to consist of
nineteen stones, answering to the ancient Metonic Cycle of nineteen
years, at the end of which the sun and the moon are in the same
relative situation as at the beginning, when indeed the same
almanack will do again.

"In my younger days I have visited Stonehenge by starlight, and
found, on applying my sight from the top of the 6-foot pillars of
the inner oval and looking at the high trilithons, I could mark the
places of the planets and the stars in the heavens, so as to
measure distances by the corners and angles of them....

"It is very remarkable that no barrow or tumulus exists on the east
side, where the sun (the great object of ancient worship) first
appears."

[3] "Dr. Smith says that he has tried a bit of this stone, and found
that it would not stand fire. It is, therefore, very improbable that
it should have been used for burnt sacrifices."

The theory put forward in this article has in late years been upheld
by no less an authority than Sir Norman Lockyer, who thinks that the
practice of visiting Stonehenge on the longest day of the year--a
pilgrimage that goes back before the beginnings of recorded history,
essayed by a country people not addicted to wasting a fine summer
morning without some very strong tradition to prompt them--goes far to
bear out the theory that Stonehenge was a solar temple. If this is so,
the mysterious people who erected it were civilized enough to have a
good working knowledge of the movement of the heavenly bodies, and
probably combined that knowledge with a not unreasonable worship and
ritual. Sir Norman Lockyer's calculations give the date of the
erection as about 1680 B.C.

Lord Avebury considers that it is part of a great scheme for honouring
the famous dead, and many modern writers have adopted the same view.
That the Plain near by is a great cemetery is beyond doubt, but then
so are more or less all the chalk hills of Britain.

There is more than one explanation of the probable method of the
construction of the trilithons. A writer in the _Wiltshire
Archaeological Magazine_ (W. Long) puts forward the theory that an
artificial mound was made in which holes were dug to receive the
upright pillars. When these were in position the recumbent block could
easily be placed across the two and, all the trilithons being
complete, the earth could be dug away, leaving the stones standing.
Professor Gowland, however, does not favour this view in the light of
his recent discoveries and is inclined to credit the builders with a
greater knowledge of simple engineering.

[Illustration: STONEHENGE DETAIL.]

In 1918 Stonehenge, which hitherto had formed part of the Amesbury
Abbey estate of Sir Cosmo Gordon Antrobus, was sold to Sir C.H. Chubb,
who immediately presented it to the nation. The work of restoration is
being carried out by the Office of Works, and the Society of
Antiquaries are, at their own expense, sifting every cubic inch of
ground under those stones that are being re-erected--to the dismay of
many of that body--in beds of concrete! Much apprehension has been
felt by archaeologists that this renovation will have deplorable
results, but it is promised that nothing is to be done in the way of
replacement which cannot be authenticated. At the time of writing the
work is still in progress and all is chaos. When the hideous iron
fence is replaced by the proposed ha-ha, or sunk fence, and new sward
grows about the old stones the general effect will be greatly
improved. The excavators have re-discovered certain depressions shown
in Aubrey's Map (1666) and which had long since disappeared to outward
view. There is little doubt that they held stones more or less in a
circle with the "Slaughter Stone." It is conjectured that, as in the
case of the inner blue stones, this outer ring was constructed before
the more imposing trilithons were erected, perhaps at a period long
anterior. Each of the holes already explored contain calcined human
bones.

Stonehenge Down; Wilsford Down to the south; Stoke Down westwards,
and, in fact, the whole of the great Plain is a maze of earthworks,
ditches, tumuli and relics of a past at which we can only guess. Here,
if anywhere in Britain, is haunted ground and perhaps the silence of
earlier writers may be explained by the existence of a kind of "taboo"
that prevented reference to the mysteries of the Plain.

The exploration of the upper Avon may be extended from Amesbury to
Durrington (one mile from Bulford station), where is an old church
containing fine carved oak fittings worth inspection. Across the
stream is Milston, where Addison was born and his father was rector.
Higher up the river is pretty Figheldean with its old thatched
cottages embowered among the huge trees that line the banks of the
stream, and with a fine Early English church. The monuments in the
Decorated chancel are to some of the Poores, once a notable family.
The church also contains certain unknown effigies. These were
discovered at some distance from the church, probably having been
thrown away during some earlier "restoration!"

[Illustration: ENFORD.]

Netheravon is famous for its Cavalry School. Of its Norman and Early
English church Sydney Smith was once a curate, to his great
discomfort. The tower here is very old and some have called it Saxon.
The student of _Rural Rides_ will remember that here Cobbett saw an
"acre of hares!" Fittleton is another unspoilt little village, and
Enford, or Avonford, the next, has a fine church unavoidably much
restored after having been struck by lightning early in the nineteenth
century; the Norman piers remain. All these villages gain in interest
and charm to the pedestrian by being just off the high road that keeps
to the west bank of the river. Upavon, however, is on a loop of this
highway and sees more traffic. Here is a church with a Transitional
chancel; it is said that the contemporary nave was of wood. The fine
tower and present nave belong to the thirteenth century. The Norman
font with its archaic carving and the fifteenth-century crucifix over
the west door should be noticed. Upavon was the home of a kindred
spirit to Cobbett, for here was born the once famous "Orator Hunt,"
farmer and demagogue--rare combination! He was chairman of the meeting
in Manchester that had "Peterloo" as its sequel. Near Upavon, but down
stream, is the small and ancient manor house of Chisenbury, until
lately the property of the Groves, one of whose ancestors suffered
death for his participation in the rising of Colonel Penruddock during
the Commonwealth.

At Rushall the narrow valley of the Avon, guarded by the opposing
camps of Casterley and Chisenbury, is left for the transverse vale of
Pewsey, on the farther side of which are the Marlborough Downs. A
number of chalk streams drain the vale and go to make up the
head-waters of the Avon; in fact two streams, both bearing the old
British name for river, meet hereabouts; the one rising about two
miles from Savernake station and the other about the same distance
from Devizes. Along the northern slope of this vale the canal made to
join the Kennet and Thames with yet another, the Bristol Avon, runs
its lonely course. Five miles west of Rushall is the divide between
the waters of the English Channel and the Severn Sea, and the Bristol
Avon receives the stream that rises but a mile from its namesake of
Christchurch Bay. High in one of the combes at this end of the valley
is the small village of All Cannings, said to have been of much
importance in the dark ages as a Saxon centre. All it has to show the
visitor now is a cruciform church with Norman and Early English
fragments and a good Perpendicular tower.

The villages of Pewsey Vale are many and charming. All are well served
by the "short-cut" line of the Great Western, over which the Devon and
Cornwall expresses now run. Across the vale, in an opposite direction
to the iron way, runs the Ridgeway, a road probably in use when
Stonehenge was not, and Silbury Hill, that mystery of the Marlborough
Downs, was yet to be. On the western side of this old road are the
villages of Patney and Chirton. At the latter is a very beautiful
Transitional church. Near Beechingstoke, close to the Ridgeway, is a
famous British village, the entrenchment containing about thirty
acres. The old road comes down from the northern highlands between
Milk Hill (964 feet) and Knap Hill, the two bluffs that rear their
great bulk across the vale. Here beneath the "White Horse," a modern
one cut at the beginning of the nineteenth century, are the old
churches of Alton Priors and Alton Berners, the latter partly Saxon.

The road north-east from Rushall runs through Manningford Bruce. The
church here is possibly Saxon; it has a semi-circular apse. On the
north wall of the chancel is a tablet to Mary Nicholas with arms
bearing the royal canton. This was her reward for helping Charles in
his flight after the battle of Worcester. Manningford Abbots once
belonged to the Abbot of Hyde. The rebuilt church is only of interest
in possessing a very fine pre-Reformation chalice. Two miles farther
is Pewsey, a pleasant town surrounded by the chalk hills. From those
to the eastward Cobbett, when he beheld the vale stretched out before
him, broke into one of those simple but graphic descriptive touches
that help to make the _Rural Rides_ immortal, "A most beautiful sight
it was! Villages, hamlets, large farms, towers, steeples, fields,
meadows, orchards and very fine timber trees. The shape of the thing
was this: on each side downs, very lofty and steep in some places, and
sloping miles back in other places, but on each side out of the valley
are downs. From the edge of the downs begin capital arable fields,
generally of very great dimensions and in some places running a mile
or two back into little cross valleys formed by hills of downs. After
the corn-fields come meadows on each side, down to the brook or river.
The farmhouses, mansions, villages and hamlets are generally situated
in that part of the arable land that comes nearest to the meadows.
Great as my expectations had been, they were more than fulfilled. I
delight in this sort of country..... I sat upon my horse, and I looked
over Milton and Easton and Pewsey for half an hour, though I had not
breakfasted."

Pewsey Church has a Transitional nave and Early English chancel; the
oblong tower being Perpendicular. The carved reredos was designed and
worked by Canon Pleydell-Bouverie, who also made the communion rails
from some timbers of the _San Josef_, a ship taken by Nelson at the
battle of Cape St. Vincent. The roof of the organ chamber and vestry
are of much interest; they are part of the refectory roof of Ivychurch
Priory.

The country to the north of the little old town is very beautiful. The
precipitous wall of the Marlborough Downs, with several lovely and
little-known villages at its foot, is a remarkable feature of the
landscape. The high road to Marlborough, that climbs the hills for
three fatiguing miles, passes through the small village of Oare, where
there is a modern red-brick church. Not far away to the west are the
hamlets of West and East Towel, lost in the lonely by ways beneath the
hills. Above them in a fold of the Downs is Huish, dropped down amidst
memorials of a long vanished past. Dewponds, earthworks and "hut
circles" cover the hills in all directions. At Martinsell, the
camp-crowned hill to the east of the high road, until recent days a
festival was held, the beginnings of which may have been in Neolithic
times. On Palm Sunday young men and maidens would ascend the hill
carrying boughs of hazel. They would, no doubt, have been scandalized
if told that the ceremony had anything but a Christian significance.
The prospect of the Vale from this hill-side, or from the high road
itself, is not easily forgotten, and the beech-woods and parklands of
Rainscombe, that fill the broad but sheltered hollow below, make a
lovely foreground to the view.

We must now return to the lower end of the Vale of Wylye which has
been noticed at Wilton, where the river, road and rail come down a
narrow defile from Heytsbury and Warminster. This valley has on the
north and east the familiar aspect of Salisbury Plain. On the south
and west are those wooded hills that are seen also from the
neighbourhood of Fonthill, and though both sides of the valley are
made of the same material--the current chalk of Wiltshire--they are
very unlike in their superficial scenery. The Wylye is perhaps the
most beautiful of Wiltshire rivers, and although it has an important
cross-country railway running close to it for the greater part of its
length, the villages and hamlets upon the banks are peculiarly calm,
secluded and unspoilt.

The high road from Salisbury to Warminster turns northwards at
Fugglestone past the two Wilton stations, without entering that town
and, passing through Chilhampton and South Newton, reaches the hamlet
of Stoford, which has an old inn close to the river bank. A short half
mile westwards is the picturesque old village of Great Wishford, said
to be derived from "welsh-ford," where the church has been so much
restored that it is practically a new one. The chancel with its fine
triple lancet window is Early English. The altar tomb of Sir Thomas
Bonham has his effigy in a pilgrim's robe which is said to commemorate
that knight's seven years' sojourn in Palestine. An incredible
tradition, current among the country people, says that Lady Bonham
gave birth to seven children at one time, and that the sieve, in which
they were all brought to the church to be christened, hung in the old
nave for many years. The fine tomb in the chancel is that of Sir
Richard Grobham (1629). His helmet and banner are suspended upon the
opposite wall; an old chest in the south aisle is said to have been
saved from a Spanish ship by this knight.

The main road continues up the valley to Stapleford, where is a fine
cruciform church with Norman arches on the south of the nave and with
a door of this period on the same side. The fine sedilia and piscina
in the fourteenth-century chancel should be noticed, and also the
well-proportioned porch that has within it a coffin slab bearing an
incised cross. Here the valley of the Winterbourne comes down from the
heart of the Plain at Orcheston through Winterbourne Stoke and Berwick
St. James; a lonely and thinly populated string of hamlets seldom
visited by the ordinary tourist, but of much charm to those who
appreciate the more unsophisticated type of English village that,
alas! is becoming more rare every day. Both Berwick and Stoke have
interesting old churches.

Continuing up the Wylye we reach Steeple Langford, situated in the
most beautiful part of the valley. Here is a Decorated church with
good details and a remarkable tomb-slab bearing an incised figure of
an unknown huntsman, also a fine altar tomb of the Mompessons. The
rector here in the days of the Parliament was ejected in the depth of
winter with his wife and eleven children, suffering great hardship
before succour reached them. Little Langford is across the stream in
an exquisite situation. Deeply embowered among the trees is the small
cruciform church with an interesting Norman door, showing in the
tympanum, a bishop, said to represent St. Aldhelm, in the act of
benediction. We may keep to the road that closely follows the railway
on the south side of the stream to Wylye, a quiet little place half
way up the vale. Here is a Perpendicular church with a pinnacled tower
and an Early English east end. The Jacobean pulpit stood in the old
church at Wilton and was brought here when that was rebuilt. A famous
pre-Reformation chalice is preserved among the church plate, and the
village is proud of its bells. One bears the words "Ave Maria";
another not so old is inscribed "1587 Give thanks to God." Across the
stream the hamlet of Deptford stands on the main road, which goes by
Fisherton de la Mere to Codford St. Mary. Here another quiet valley
opens up into the Plain and leads to the remote villages of Chitterne
St. Mary and All Saints, among many relics of the prehistoric
past--"British" villages and circles, tumuli and ditches. Codford St.
Mary Church, though partly rebuilt, is still of interest and has a
Transitional Norman chancel arch and fine Norman font. The Jacobean
pulpit and Tudor altar tomb of Sir Richard Mompesson should be
noticed. The altar is said to have been made from the woodwork of a
derelict pulpit from St. Mary's, Oxford. Cobbett was enthusiastic
about the well-being of the country and its farmers hereabouts, and
was especially delighted with the rich picture that this part of the
Wylye makes from the Down above. Codford is the village taken by
Trollope for the scene of _The Vicar of Bulhampton_.