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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Yours, dated at London, April 9th, 1692, came to my hands about ten days after; since that time, I have been using my best endeavours for obtaining a satisfactory answer to your queries: if that which I now send you be not such as I desired, and, it may be, you expected, it is none of my fault: for I not only visited sundry of those antiquities (to the number of six or seven) concerning which you desire to be informed; but also employed the assistance of my friends, whereof some were going from this place to other parts of the country, and others live at a distance. I have been waiting all this time for an account of their diligence; and albeit I have not heard as yet from all those persons to whom I wrote and spoke for information, yet I thought it not fit to delay the giving you a return any longer, lest you should apprehend, either that your letter had miscarried, or that I had neglected the contents of it.
page 313 note [a] J. G. Keysler, in his “Antiquitates selectae Septentr. et Celt.“ pag. 11. after some account of Stone-henge (which he takes to be the work of the Anglo-Saxons) and other the like monuments, adds, “Supersunt in ipsa Anglia complura “ejusmodi monumenta, inter quae eminent vasta saxa in orbem disposita in Oxoniensi “comitatu, quae Rollerick-stones vulgus appellat.” Vide Plot's Nat. Hist. Oxf. cap. 10. “De iis quae in Devonia haud procul Exonia exstant, Mighty-stones “dicta.” Vide Speed. “Quinque millibus passuum a Bristolio meridiem versus, “et uno milliari Anglico a Pensfordia, qua spectat ad occidentem solem, rudera restant “duorum ejusmodi operum, quarum alterum una lapidum corona, alterum “tribus constitisse videtur. Illud si reliquorum dimensionem sequamur, 32 eximiae “magnitudinis lapides habuit, quorum non nisi 13 superstites, in terram omnes “dejecti aut proni, exceptis tribus. Centum ulnis Brunsvicensibus (60 fere Anglicis “Yards) ab iis conspiciuntur majores duo lapides, quos recentiores quidam “scriptores perperam nominant The King and Queen stolen, regis reginaeque sedes; “incolae appellant The Parson and Clerk, fabulantes choream Die Dominica saltantium “una cum sacerdote et fidicinibus in lapides fuisse versam. Nonnulla hujusmodi “monumenta visuntur etiam in Orcadibus insulis. De Scoticis conferri debent, “quae Hector Boethius habet in Hist. Scot. De ingentibus et rudibus saxis quae haud “longe a Naasa Hiberniae in agro Kildariensi et alibi cernuntur,” Leg. Ware, Antiq. Hibern. cap. xxiv. pag. 103. et seq. T. M.
page 316 note [b] In Wiltshire, in the parish of Winterbourne, in the tithing of Ricardson, is a fair Down called Temple Down, which is in the country of those Temples I write off. Quere, if not in Dorset? C. L.
Not far from Marlborough, is a village called Presholt, perhaps it might be Priests Holt (i.e.) Priests Wood. Mr. Aubrey.
page 316 note [c] From their (viz. barrows, heaps of stones, &c.) being intended for sepulchres, they are called Lows in Staffordshir, and Lawes in Ireland. Antiq. Corn. first edit. pag. 200.
page 318 note [d] The very ingenious author of Topographical Anecdotes under the article Inverness-shire, p. 647. informs us, that Mr. Gordon in his Itin. Septentr. p. 166. Pl. LXV. has given a particular description and view of two of the four circular buildings mentioned by Buchanan, lib. i. and iv. as in Ross, now in this shire, in the vale of Glenbeg. Martin mentions several such in Lewis Isle. Dr. Stukely had an unpublished plate of that which Gordon calls Castle Tellve, and he, the Giant's Castle. He makes them Druidical temples, and his sketch of the vale exhibits a circle of stones with an avenue at the head of a little river. He says, Captain Douglas told him there were vast numbers of stones like Stonehenge, with avenues of stones all over Scotland. T. M.