Archaeological Journal Volume 15 Pages 199-215
Archaeological Journal Volume 15 Pages 199-215 is in Archaeological Journal Volume 15.
The Druidical Temple at Stanton Drew, Commonly called The Weddings. By William Long.
William Long: Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 1857 V4 Pages 307-363. Abury By William Long, Esq., M.A. Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 1878 V17 Pages 327-335. Abury Notes. By William Long, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. Archaeologia Volume 84 1935 Section VI. Lukis and Smith also noted and planned several pits in which stones originally stood. Hoare noted eight of these depressions, but Smith and Lukis were able to add twenty-five others not previously recorded. This increased William Long’s table of stones in 1857 from twenty-nine to forty-seven. A number of these stones of Smith and Lukis were declared by Stukeley to have been demolished before he made his plan in 1724.
To the antiquary who has lingered in astonishment beneath the gigantic trilithons of Stonehenge, or who has made the circuit of the huge vallum of Abury, wondering as he walked at the magnitude and grandeur of the few remaining portions of the circles which it encompassed, the sight of the ancient work at Stanton Drew, in the county of Somerset, cannot fail to be somewhat disappointing. It is by no means an imposing monument of antiquity. It has no vast downs studded with barrows to encircle it, and give it the awfulness attendant upon solitude; the stones which compose it are not particularly large, nor is their arrangement such as to produce much effect; it has no vallum or fosse to enclose it; nor are the four portions which compose it all visible at the same time from any one point. It is nevertheless a spot full of interest to the student of his country's antiquities, and is generally considered to have been constructed at a much earlier period than either of the two grander monuments in the adjoining county. It is situated about seven miles south of Bristol, in the fertile and well-wooded valley of the Chew, in some pasture-ground near the river, and is overlooked by the range of the Dundry Hills, of which the nearest and most important height is the remarkable elevation called Maes Knoll. The tump which has been raised to isolate the Knoll and protect the camp which crowns it, is a conspicuous object from Stanton Drew, and it may be easily imagined to be coeval with the erection of the neighbouring temple. The mound and dyke, called "Wansdyke," which connect the camps at Hampton Down and Stantonbury, and which are so remarkably distinct at Englishcombe, are continued to this hill fortress, and may be traced in the meadow at the foot of the hill in their course from Compton Dando. In other respects there is nothing in the immediate neighbourhood of Stanton Drew which is particularly in keeping with its venerable stone circles, or which would lead a person who was not aware of their existence to expect to meet with such a monument in such a place.
Before describing its present condition, I will briefly notice the earliest, and also the best accounts of it which have come down to us; and it is satisfactory to find from them that this very interesting remnant of remote antiquity has been suffered to remain unmolested for nearly a century and a half. "They told me," says Aubrey, in 1664, "they (the stones) are much diminished within these few years;" and Stukeley speaks of "a late tenant, who, for covetousness of the little space of ground they stood upon, buried them for the most part in the ground." It does not appear, however, that since Stukeley's visit in 1723, a single stone has been removed. Would that the same veneration had been dis played towards the temple and its precincts at Abury, where a wanton destruction of the stones was unceasingly carried on during the whole of the eighteenth century,—a destruction which the antiquary can never sufficiently deplore.
It is remarkable that the celebrity of the three great monuments of antiquity in the south and west of England, Stonehenge, Abury, and Stanton Drew, should have been in an inverse ratio to the extent of ground which they respectively cover. The smallest of them, Stonehenge, was treated of by Henry of Huntingdon, 700 years ago; the next in size, Stanton Drew, although undescribed previous to the latter part of the seventeenth century, was nevertheless better known for many years than Abury, the grandest and most considerable of them all. The indefatigable John Aubrey was the first who brought both Abury and Stanton Drew into notice. The former he stumbled upon when hunting in 1648, the latter he visited in 1664. The account he gives of Stanton Drew is very scanty, and his sketch of it in the "Monumenta Britannica" far from intelligible. He says,— "When I last saw it, it was in harvest time, and the barley being then ripe, I could not come to survey the stones so exactly as I would otherwise have done." It may, in part, be attributed to this cause, and in part to the intersection of the great circle at that time by hedges, that his "scheme," as he calls it, is so unlike anything now to be seen at Stanton Drew.
Dr. Musgrave, in his "Belgium Britannicum," 1719 (vol. i. p. 206, &c.), gives an account of Stanton Drew, derived from Mr. Palmer, of Fairfield. It is illustrated by an interesting and apparently very accurate plate of the work as it then stood; and it is curious that one more recumbent stone should be now visible in the great circle than when Mr. Palmer described it.
Keysler, in his "Antiquitates Septentrionales," 1720, gives a short account of Stanton Drew, for which he was indebted to another Somersetshire gentleman, Mr. Strachey; but it is curious that neither Mr. Aubrey, Mr. Palmer, nor Mr. Strachey, appears to have been aware of the existence of The Cove, or of the circle which is near it, their descriptions being confined to the portions of the work in the field nearest to the river.
Dr. Stukeley, who bestowed so much pains upon the elucidation of Stonehenge and Abury, visited Stanton Drew in 1723. His account of it was printed in the second volume of the "Itinerarium Curiosum," published in 1776, eleven years after his death.
Wood, the architect of Bath, in his history of that city, published in 1749, runs riot in his usual style about Stanton Drew. Collinson describes it briefly in his history of Somerset, published in 1791; and Mr. Seyer, in his "History of Bristol," 1821, has a more detailed account of it, with measurements of the stones, and lithographic illustrations of their form and character. The plan of Stanton Drew, which may be implicitly relied on, is that published by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in his "Modern Wiltshire," from a survey by Mr. Crocker, and a copy of which illustrates the present paper.
We will first direct our attention to the three stones in the orchard on the higher ground to the south of the church, and which form what Stukeley called The Cove [Map]. The two side stones are standing, and that which formed the back is fallen down. These three stones are 18 inches thick; the prostrate one, of which, perhaps, 2 feet were under ground, is, according to Collinson, 14 feet long, and 8 feet wide; the taller of the two which are upright is 10 feet high and in width; the other is only 5 feet high. Stukeley makes the recumbent stone "13 foot long, and 8 broad." Seyer says it is 13 feet long, and that the south western of the standing stones is 11 feet high. " Whether it was once higher, which is probable, cannot be ascertained." The Cove [Map] is 10 feet wide, and about 8 deep, and opens to the south-east. The best print I have seen of it is that given by Stukeley in the Itinerarium Curiosum.
At a distance of 157 yards from this Cove, in an easterly direction, are the remains of a circle of stones of 120 feet diameter according to Stukeley, of 140 according to Wood, and of 129 according to Crocker. The number of stones appears to have been originally twelve. There are now remaining, in the orchard 6; in the adjoining field 3; and there is one under the wall which separates the orchard from the field. They are very rude and irregular in shape. The largest of them, according to Mr. Seyer's measurement, is 10 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 2 feet thick; the next in position to this one is also the next in size, and is 8 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 2 feet thick. They are almost all prostrate, and some of them are nearly buried in the ground. Stukeley says, "This I call the Lunar Temple. This circle is the same diameter and number of stones with the inner circles of the two temples at Abury."
At a distance of 150 yards from this circle in a north easterly direction, is the circumference of the largest of the Stanton Drew circles. The diameter of it, according to Stukeley and Collinson, is 300 feet, according to Wood 378 feet, and according to Seyer 342 feet. Mr. Crocker makes it an oval, with a diameter from west to east of 345 feet, and from north to south of 378 feet. It may here be remarked, that the diameter of Stonehenge is about 100 feet, and that of the large circle at Abury about 1200 feet. The number of stones remaining is 14, of which 3 only are standing; others, it is said, are beneath the surface, and make known their position from time to time by the burnt appearance of the grass above them in hot summers. There is great difference of opinion respecting the number of stones of which this circle was originally composed. Dr. Musgrave and Keysler thought that there had been 32 stones, Stukeley supposed that there had been "30 set at the distance of 30 foot." The tallest of the standing stones is 7½ feet high, and about 6 feet thick, and the largest prostrate stone is 11 feet in length, 9 in width, and 2½ in thickness. They are all of a rude and uncouth appearance. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1785 (vol. lv. p. 762), makes two intersecting circles out of these stones, but there can scarcely be a doubt that those who brought them there intended to group them into one circle, and one only.
Eastward from the great circle, at a distance of 150 feet, is a circle of eight stones, and this is the most imposing portion of the whole work. Its diameter is 96 feet. All the stones but one are represented as being erect in the plate in Musgrave's "Belgium Britannicum;" four only are now upright, the other four being prostrate. Most of them are square and massive. The tallest of those which are upright is 12½ feet in perpendicular height; another is 10 feet high and 7½ square. The largest recumbent stone is 15½ feet long and 5 feet square. It is supposed that the fragments of stone on the east side were occasioned by the fracture of one of them in falling, but it is more probable from their appearance and size that, as Stukeley says, there were nine stones, " two of which are crowded together and set at an angle a little obtuse, so that they form a niche or cove." Adjoining this circle on the east and south are seven scattered stones, which have given rise to a great deal of conjecture. Musgrave considered that these and the other five stones between " the circle of eight" and the great circle, had contributed to the formation of an outer circle to "the circle of eight," and that of this circle some stones had been removed from their places, while others had been taken away for building and other purposes. Keysler supposed that there had been here three circles. Stukeley maintains that these stones were portions of five concentric circles, of which "the circle of eight," or as he has it, of nine, was the innermost. Wood is also an advocate for five concentric circles, though of different dimensions from those conjectured by Stukeley. The writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, before referred to, with more discretion than imagination, contents himself with printing upon his engraved plan, "There are seven stones to the E. southerly of this small temple of which I can make nothing." Seyer says truly, with respect to the supposed concentric circles, " The number of stones required to fill up such circles would be very great, and there are no traces of them." The generally received opinion respecting these twelve stones is that they formed a sharply curving avenue which connected the "circle of eight" with the large circle.
The outermost of these stones were vulgarly called "the Fiddlers," the others, "the Maids," or "the revel rout attendant on a marriage festival," and the whole work " the Weddings," for "the people of this country," says Stukeley, "have a notion, that upon a time a couple were married on a Sunday, and the friends and guests were so profane as to dance upon the green together, and by a divine judgment were then converted into stones."... "I have observed," he adds, "that this notion and appellation of Weddings, Brides, and the like, is not peculiar to this place, but applied to many other of these Celtic monuments about the kingdom, as the 'Nine Maids' in Cornwall—nine great stones set all in a row;1 whence possibly one may conjecture in very ancient times it was a custom here, even of the Christians, to solemnize marriage and other holy rites in these ancient temples, perhaps before churches were built in little parishes, and even now they retain, or very lately did, in Scotland, a custom of burying people in the like temples, as judging them holy ground." "No one, say the country people about Stantondrue, was ever able to reckon the number of these metamorphosed stones, or to take a draught of them, though several have attempted to do both, and proceeded till they were either struck dead upon the spot, or with such an illness as soon carried them off. This," says Wood, " was seriously told me when I began to take a plan of them, on the 12th of August, 1740, to deter me from proceeding, and as a storm accidentally arose just after, and blew down part of a great tree near the body of the work, the people were then thoroughly satisfied that I had disturbed the guardian spirits of the metamorphosed stones, and from thence great pains were taken to convince me of the impiety of what I was about." (Description of Bath, vol. i. p. 148.)
Note 1. Stukeley might have specified the "Nine Ladies [Map]" in Derbyshire, and "Long Meg and her Daughters [Map]" in Cumberland.
Dr. Stukeley considered that "the great plain (as he calls it) in the middle of the area was convenient for the works of sacrificing, and after for feastings, wrestling, coyting, and the like;" and that "the fine lawn on the south side, together with the interval northward between it and the river," had been a cursus for races of horses, chariots, and the like, in old British times.
Collinson was of opinion that there had been avenues to the great circle, and that the large stone north-east [Hautville's Quoit [Map]] from it on the other side of the river had served as part of a portal to one of them. Stukeley, however, did not believe that there had ever been any avenue to this work. Of the celebrated stone just mentioned, Aubrey gives the following account: "About a quarter of a mile from this monument of the Wedding is a stone called Hakewell's Coyte, which is a great roundish stone, of the shape of a coyte; length of it is 10 feet 16 (sic) inches, broad 6 feet 6 inches, thick 1 foot 10 inches, and lies flatt, and seems to have been left: it is of the same sort of stone with those at the Wedding. This is not erect as they of Stoneheng, &c. The common people tell this incredible story, that Hakewell stood upon the top of Norton Hill, about half a mile off where the coyte now lies, and coyted it down to this place; for which having the Manor of Norton given him, and thinking it too little, did give it the name of Norton-mal-reward, which they pronounce Small-reward. That in these parts anciently was one Hakewell, a person of great estate and strength of body, is manifest by the figure in his monument in Chew Church."
Stukeley measured this stone, which he calls a hard reddish stone, and found it to be 13 feet long, 8 broad and 4 thick. Collinson says that "it was computed to have weighed upwards of thirty tons; but the waggon loads of fragments that have been broken from it at different times for the purpose of mending the roads, have diminished its consequence as to bulk and appearance, though not as to antiquity or the design of its erection; for it was part of a very remarkable monument of antiquity which has distinguished this parish for many ages, and has diverted the steps of many a traveller."
The Hakewell who performed the feat above-mentioned, and who is vulgarly supposed to have had his abode on Maes knoll (where traces of his occupation remain in the tump which is said to have been formed of the scrapings of his spade), was Sir John Hautville, who lived at Norton in the time of Henry III., and was engaged in all the wars of that prince, and was signed with the cross in order to his going to the Holy Land with Prince Edward. When Norton Church was destroyed, his monument, with his effigy cut in wood, was removed to the church of Chew Magna.1
Note 1. See Mr. Walford's Memoir on this effigy, Archaeol. Journal, vol. xiv. p. 158.
In the opposite direction and to the north-westward of The Cove, are two stones lying in a field called Lower Tyning. Seyer mentions that it is said by the neighbours that other stones lie unnoticed in unfrequented parts of the parish.
Among the many questions to which Stanton Drew has given rise, one of the most debated is the geological character of the stones of which the circles are composed. Aubrey says, "They seem to be of the very same stone as St. Vincent's rocks near Bristow, about six miles hence. They are of several tunnes: in some of them is iron-oare, as likewise appears at St. Vincent's rocks." Musgrave writes that they are of that kind of stone which contains pyrites, and is very plentiful in that district. Stukeley says, "The stone it is composed of, is of such a kind as I have not elsewhere seen; certainly entirely different from that of the country, which is a slab kind. If any stone ever was, this would tempt one to think it factitious, though I think nothing less: it looks like a paste, of flints, shells, crystals, and the like solid corpuscles crowded together and cemented, but infallibly by Nature's artifice If I have any judgment, by oft-surveying these kind of works, and with a nice eye,' I guess by its present appearance, and consideration of its wear, to be older than Abury and Stonehenge. One would think, from its dusky and rusty colour, that it is a kind of iron stone: it is very full of fluors and transparent crystallisations, like Bristol stones, large, and in great lumps; so that it shines eminently, and reflects the sun-beams with great lustre. I cannot but think that it is brought from St. Vincent's rock, near the mouth of Bristol river, as Mr. Aubrey says expressly; though Mr. Strachey, who has curiously observed everything of this kind, cannot affirm it I found some stone, like this, by the sea-side, this summer, at Southampton; and the walls of the town are mostly built of it." He thinks that they had not been " hewn with a tool, but rather broke by flints and a great strength of hand in those early ages, when iron tools were not found out." Wood writes, " The predominant colour of that part of the stone in the works at Stanton Drue, sup posed to have been taken from Oaky Hole, is red; and it is so exceeding hard, that it will polish almost as well as some of the purple Italian marble, and is as beautiful: the other stone is of two colours, white and grey; the white stone seems to have been the produce of Dundry Hill, but the grey stone resembles the sand rocks about Stanton Drue, and seems to have been taken from them." To Collinson they appeared to be "a composition of pebbles, grit, and other concrete matter, and never to have been hewn from the rock." Phelps, in his " History of Somerset," says, " These huge masses were supposed to have been brought from East Harptree, near the Mendip Hills, where stones of a similar quality (a shelly chert or conglomerate of calcareo-magnesian limestone) are to be found; but upon a more accurate examination of the strata of the vicinity, it seems they were raised near the spot on which they stand, from a stratum about six feet under the surface," (Part i. p. 78.) Mr. Charles Moore, F.G.S., whose reputation as a geologist is not con fined to Somersetshire, has kindly furnished me with the fol lowing notice of the geology of the district in connection with these stones.
" The village of Stanton Drew is situated in a depression of country well known to geologists as the Bristol Coal Basin, and though from its smaller size it does not possess the same commercial importance as the Welsh or Northern coal fields, the proximity of so valuable a mineral has been the means of adding much to our domestic comforts.
" The area of this coal field is bounded on the south by the Mendip Hills, the central axis of which is the old red sand stone. Resting on this appear beds of carboniferous or mountain limestone. These may be again seen on the outer edge of the basin in the hills of Wrington, Backwell, and Durdham Down, near Bristol. Its northern development is clearly shown by a narrow strip of the same limestone, which commencing near Almondsbury passes to Cromhall in Gloucestershire, and returns on the eastern side south to Chipping Sodbury. From this point, the limestones are in general covered, by later deposits, but they are protruded through the lias at Dodington, and at Wick Rocks, and are lastly seen near the Druids' Stones under Lansdown, from whence they probably pass below Bath to complete their encirclement of the Basin to Frome.
"These limestones were once horizontal strata, but are now much fissured and disturbed, evidences of which are everywhere observable, but especially in the beautiful Combes of Ebber, Cheddar, and Cleve, and the gorge of the Avon at Clifton. Volcanic action is the only cause sufficient to account for their appearance, and of this there is proof in the Combes of Cleve and Cross, near Wrington, where molten trap has been projected through the limestones, and has spread itself over the surface; and again near Tortworth in Gloucestershire.
"Within the area I have described, and lying upon these limestones, occur the coal measures. They have been worked at Stanton Drew, and are at the surface about a mile east of this village. They are also so found at Compton Dando, Publow, and Pensford, and again at Clutton, High Littleton, and near Mells.
"Though the area where the coal-measures come to the surface in the neighbourhood is small, it is probable they may be found by sinking over the greater part of the Basin. In the instance of the Clan Down pit, workings were commenced in the inferior oolite, and coal found at a depth of 202 fathoms.
" The new red sandstone covers the greater part of the coal-measures on this side of Bristol, and is the formation on which Stanton Drew stands.
"The lower beds of this group show that after the deposition of the carboniferous system, great disturbances must have arisen; for almost everywhere on the sides of the Mendips, and filling up many of its fissures, are accumulations of a pebbly breccia, cemented together by magnesian limestone. These beds are called Dolomitic Conglomerate. The nearest point at which this conglomerate is found, is at Broadfield Down, about three miles west of Stanton Drew.
"Dr. Buckland, in his observations 011 the South-west coal field of England, refers to a peculiar cherty conglomerate, which he states is found at East Harptree, belonging to the dolomitic conglomerate; and he also mentions that there are in that neighbourhood smaller cherty pebbles distributed over the surface. Phelps alludes to the idea that these blocks originally came from Harptree, but that on a more accurate examination of the vicinity of Stanton Drew, it is probable they were raised near the spot on which they stand, from a stratum about six feet under the surface. I have lately observed numerous pebbles of chert distributed over the surface in this neighbourhood, as at Harptree, and though I have had no opportunity of testing the correctness of Mr. Phelps's conclusions,—as the geological position of the conglomerates would be not far beneath where the stones now stand, it is probable he may be correct. Great mechanical power must have been needed to have tran sported them from Harptree, a supposition not to be enter tained when the same rocks are found within a distance of three miles. Most of the blocks are composed of this con glomerate, which has been slightly coloured by red oxide of iron, but there are others of a much finer grain, and were these found in Wiltshire, they might readily be mistaken for 'Sarsen Stones.' These appear to be derived from the carboniferous grits of the immediate neighbourhood.
" To complete this imperfect sketch of the geological features of the district, I have only to add, that directly to the north in ascending the hill to Dundry, the lower lias may be seen resting upon the new red sandstone; further up the hill are the middle and upper lias, of no commercial importance, but which, in Yorkshire, though in appearance nothing but an ordinary sandstone, last year yielded a million tons of valuable ironstone. On the summit appears the inferior oolite, through which, on the eastern end, the Wansdyke has been cut, and on which stand the ancient remains of Maes Knowl."
The name of this place, Stanton Drew, has given rise to much discussion; some, as Keysler, Collinson, and others, being of opinion that the word Drew had been appended to Stanton, to denote that it was the Stanton of which the family of Drogo or Drew were once the lords; while others, with Stukeley, attribute the name to the Druidical worship which was supposed to have been there celebrated. Stukeley writes, "I make no doubt but the name of Stanton Drue is derived from our monument: Stanton from the stone, and Drue from the Druids. It moves not me, that some of the name of Drew might have lived here formerly; for such a family might take the denomination of the town, and leaving out the first part, retain only that of Drew. It is sufficient conviction, that there are so many other towns in England and elsewhere that have preserved this name, and all remarkable for monuments of (this) nature." Collinson, on the other hand, says, that " about the time of the Norman Conquest, great part of the place began to be possessed by a family who derived their names from it; of whom were Roger, William and Hugh de Stanton, who all possessed it, or at least a considerable part of it, soon after the arrival of the Normans. Robert de Stanton accounted for two knights' fees in the time of Henry II., and after him came Gefferey de Stanton, who had lands in Timsborougb, Stowey, and other places in this neighbourhood, 8 Henry III. One of this family bore the appellation of Drogo or Drew, de Stanton, and gave it his name by way of distinction from another parish in this neighbourhood, called Stanton Prior, and from Stanton Wick, a hamlet in this parish. Their descendants were chiefly resident here and at Littleton, in Wiltshire. 12 Edw. III. Walter Drew is certified to hold half a knight's fee in Stanton, which William de Stanton formerly held; and 10 Henry IV., the same moiety, late the property of Roger Drew, was held by John de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury. These Drews were nearly allied to the Dinhams of Buckland and Corton." There can be little doubt that Collinson is right in his opinion. In the Anglo Saxon Charters and in Domesday Book the Stantons are Stantunesonly, and any affix to their names must have been of subsequent date. In the Anglo-Norman history of Ordericus Vitalis, four Drogos are mentioned, and among them was a Drogo, otherwise Dreux, of the celebrated Norman family of Hauteville, one of the twelve sons of Tancred de Hauteville, who conquered the south of Italy in the early part of the eleventh century. Is it not probable that it was from one of this branch that the name of Hauteville became appended to that of Norton, and the name of Dreux to Stanton, which was contiguous to it, and in which also it is very likely that he may have been a large proprietor?
I will now briefly notice the different opinions which have been propounded by different persons respecting the objects for which the circles at Stanton Drew were constructed; and here we pass entirely into the regions of conjecture and uncertainty. Stanton Drew is as little likely to give up its secret as Abury or Stonehenge, and we must not expect that it will ever be granted to any inhabitant of this present earth to unlock the riddle and interpret its dark sayings. I will give the results of such gropings for the light in respect to it as have come under my notice. The first that I can find who has offered an opinion respecting Stanton Drew is the anonymous author of " A Fool's bolt soon shott at Stonage," which was published by Iiearne from a MS. lent him by Mr. James West of Balliol College in 1722, and which bears evidence of having been written about the end of the seventeenth century. He says, " This was an old British Trophie, as may appear by the name thereof, reteined still in the name of the parrish in which it stands, viz., Stanton Dru, the stone Town of Victorie:—2, by the smaller stones, monuments of the Conquerour's friends (sic) their slain, one of which being lately fallen in the Pitt, in which it stood, were found the crumbes of a man's bones, and a round bell, like a large horse bell, with a skrew as the stemme of it; whence I conjecture, that as the circle of large stones was the Trophie of Victorie, so those smaller were monuments of friends slain in winning the Victorie (for Victors would not honour their enemies with such monuments), and the bell was part of an old Briton's weapon, there buried with its owner, and I suppose, the like bones and bells may be found under the other small stones, con firming the pramises. For Mr. Speed, in his Chronicle, pictureth an old Briton naked, Lions, Beares, Serpents painted on him to terrifie enemies, with a lance in his hand, and on the butt end whereof is such a bell screwed fast, which served in steade of a Trumpett to alarme, and a clubb to dash out the enemies braines, and this bell was, I suppose, the permanent part of that old Briton's weapon there buried with its owner, according to the old custome, continued to this day, in burying souldiers weapons with them, at least in carrying them on their coffins to their graves."
Di\ Musgrave believed the stones to have been the supporting portions of enclosures, within each of which, after the manner of the Greeks and Romans, a body was interred; time had destroyed the less durable materials, and had left only the stones. Although, from the total silence of the Greeks and Romans respecting them, the monuments of this character were to be considered as of post-Roman date, he was nevertheless willing to allow that this one might possibly have been erected before the arrival of the Belgæ.
According to Dr. Stukeley's opinion, these are the temples of the Gods, made by our British predecessors; the sun being represented by the large circle of thirty, and the moon by the circle of twelve stones; the quincuple circle he sup poses consecrate to the five lesser planets; and the Cove to have appertained to the service of the Goddess of the Earth. He considered that as Stonehenge was an improvement upon Abury, so Abury was executed upon a grander plan taken from this or some such like, and that there was a conformity between them, although Abury is a vastly more extensive and magnificent design. He nevertheless in no way connects Stanton Drew with the form and veneration of the Serpent, although he attaches so much importance to that theory in relation to the temple at Abury.
Wood maintained that the works of Stanton Drew formed a perfect model of the Pythagorean System of the Planetary World, and that in this model the large circle represented the earth, the circle of twelve stones the sun, and the circle of eight the moon.
The writer in the Gentleman's Magazine supposes this structure to be a Bethel, or temple erected in the patriarchal manner of unhewn stones, to the Supreme Being worshipped in the sun, as the visible emblem of that which is invisible.
Mr. Edward King, in his Munimenta Antiqua (vol. i., p. 141), observes, " The circles at Stanton Drew seem to " have been designed for astronomical observations, and for superstitious rites conjointly."
Collinson suggests that it was a trophy intended to commemorate some signal victory obtained on the Wansdyke, where so much blood was shed by the arms of Britons and Celtic barbarians.
Seyer considered that the objects for which temples of this kind were built were "for the united purposes of religion, law, and government." "They were not raised," he says, "without a prodigious expense of labour, perhaps the personal exertions of the whole tribe; and, therefore, it must have been for some purpose interesting to the whole nation; and such, religion, law, and government, will always be. That these places were the residence of the Druids, the name of Stanton Drew, and others, is sufficient proof; and Ave know that they were the priests, the legislators, and the judges of the nation, and controlled even the kings. It is, therefore, almost certain, that the village of Stanton Drew was in some sense the metropolis, or seat of government of the Hsedui; and that it, and perhaps others in its immediate neighbourhood, were inhabited exclusively by Druids, some of whom went every day and sat in the cove or within the circle, to decide the suits and complaints brought before them; others instructed the youth; and others offered up the daily sacrifices. On stated clays probably there was an assembly within the circles of all the men of property belonging to the tribe (the Hsedui), where peace and war, taxation, succession to the lands and to the throne, and other national affairs were settled, still under the superintendence of the Druids; and the circles being placed on an easy and pleasant knoll in a valley surrounded by hills, whatever was done might be seen by the whole assembled tribe."
The Rev. William Lisle Bowles thought that Stanton Drew was a temple of the Druids, dedicated to the Teutates of the Celts, who was the same with the Egyptian Thoth, the Phoenician Taute, the Grecian Hermes, and the Roman Mercury.
Sir Richard Colt Hoare pronounced this work to be a Dracontium, and in this he was followed by Mr. Bathurst Deane, who writes as follows:—" This temple, which is much dilapidated, originally consisted of one large circle connected by avenues with two smaller, and thus described the second order of the Ophite hierogram—the circle and two serpents. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, when two serpents are seen in connection, one typifies the Good and the other the Evil Principle." Mr. Deane admits, however, that he could trace no avenue between the circle of twelve stones and the large circle. He confirms his opinion of its Dracontian character by " a tradition of the neighbourhood, by which it appears that Keyna, the daughter of a Welch prince, who lived in the fifth century, having left her country and crossed the Severn for the purpose of finding some secluded spot, where she might devote herself without interruption to religious contemplations, arrived in the neighbourhood of Stanton Drew. She requested permission from the prince of the country to fix her residence at Keynsham, which was then an uncleared wood. The prince replied that he would readily give the permission required; but it was impossible for any one to live in that place on account of the serpents, of the most venemous species, which infested it. Keyna, however, confident in her saintly gifts, accepted the per mission, notwithstanding the warning: and taking possession of the wood, " converted by her prayers all the snakes and vipers of the place into stones. And to this clay," remarks Capgrave, the recorder of the legend, " the stones in that country resemble the windings of serpents, through all the fields and villages, as if they had been so formed by the hand of the engraver." Mr. Deane goes on to remark, " The transformation of the serpents into stone is the fable which almost always denotes the neighbourhood of a Dracontium, as we may see in the legend of Cadmus and Harmonia, Python, and others. The remark of Capgrave may allude to the anguina, or serpent-stones, so often found in the vicinity of Druidical temples: or even to the specimens of the Cornua Ammonis, which I believe are sometimes found in the neighbourhood." (" Worship of the Serpent," p. 383, &c.)
The discussion of these theories forms no part of the object of this paper, but I will venture to remark with reference to the design of this structure, that we may not unreasonably regard it as having been set up for a religious purpose; but whether it was the work of a primeval and pre-historic race, or of the Belgse, who subdued or expelled them, and of whom traces are supposed to remain in the name of the neighbouring manor of "Belgetune," or Belluton, will be a subject of controversy to the end of time.
Stukeley, fresh from the Downs of Wiltshire, wondered that he observed no tumuli or barrows, the burying-places of the people about it, as in other cases, but supposed this owing to the goodness of the soil; for, as he goes on to say, " they wisely pitched upon barren ground to repose their ashes, where they could only hope to lie undisturbed: and on Mendip Hills, not far off, they are very numerous. This particularly I am told of seven that are remarkable." The group to which Stukeley alludes is most probably one of two on Priddy Hill, of which one is formed of nine [Priddy Nine Barrows], and the other of seven barrows [Ashen Hill Barrows]. Many others, however, are to be seen on the Mendip range. The Priddy barrows were examined by the late Rev. John Skinner, in 1815, and in all cases in which the interment was found, cremation appears to have prevailed. In some the ashes were found in urns, in others without urns in cists, or on flat stones without cists. The urns were rude and unbaked, with the zigzag ornament, and usually reversed. One of them was embossed with projecting knobs, like that which was dis interred by Sir R. C. Hoare from a tumulus on Beckhampton Down. The following articles were also discovered: amber beads and a small blue opaque glass bead with them, perforated; brazen (bronze) spear heads; flint and brazen (bronze) arrow-heads; and an ivory pin, upwards of 4 inches long. These barrows are of different sizes, the highest being 12 feet high, and 164 in circumference. The Men clip Mines were doubtless extensively worked by our British forefathers, and a considerable trade in metals must have been carried on by them with foreign nations.
The chambered tumulus at Butcombe [Map], about three miles from Stanton Drew, must also be noticed, inasmuch as it has been supposed by some to have been the sepulchre of the Druids attached to the Stanton Temple. "This barrow," says the Rev. Thomas Bere, rector of Butcombe, in his communication to the Gentleman's Magazine, 1789, "is from north to south 150 feet, and from east to west 75 feet." It was found to contain a longitudinal stone chamber with lateral cells, similar to that at New Grange [Map], near Drogheda, and to the chambered barrows at Wellow, in Somersetshire [Stoney Littleton Long Barrow [Map]], a few miles only from Stanton Drew, and at Uley [Uley Barrow aka Hetty Pegler's Tump [Map]], in Gloucestershire.1 A perfect skeleton, several human skulls, and other bones were discovered within it; but it is supposed to have been previously opened. It is now entirely destroyed.
Note 1. See Dr. Thurnam's Memoir on the examination of the chambered tumuli at Uley, Archaeological Journal, vol. xi. p. 315.