There have recently come into my possession several volumes of original letters written by the late Wm. Cunnington, F.S.A.,of Heytesbury, who in conjunction with Sir R. Colt Hoare made the Stourhead Collection of antiquities now in our Museum, on which Sir R. Colt Hoare founded his work, "Ancient Wilts." Many of these letters are originals from contemporary archaeologists and geologists and others are Mr. Cunnington's own copies of replies he sent and reports of his numerous excavations in the Barrows on the Wiltshire Downs, and deal with the whole period of his excavations.

One of these letters, dated from Heytesbury, July 18th, 1801, is a copy of a letter he sent to W. P. Wyndham, Esq., of Salisbury, in which he describes the opening of Boles (Bowles) Barrow, which is situated on the downs about midway between Heytesbury and Imber. After a description of the preliminary excavations the letter goes on to say : — "We found it (the interior of the barrow) composed entirely of white marle (?chalk) stones till we came to the depth of four feet and a half when we found a ridge of large Sarcen stones and flints which extended wider as we worked down."[At the word "large" is a star, referring to a note at the bottom of the sheet, where it is written "The stones are about 28lbs. to 200lbs. weeight."]

After further description of the excavation the letter states :— "The stones that composed so large a part of this ridge over the bodies are of the same species as the very large stones at Stonehenge, which the County people call Sarcens."

At the word Stonehenge is a star, referring the reader to a note at the bottom of the page, where, in his own handwriting, is written the following : — "Since writing the above I discovered amongst them the Blue hard Stone, ye same as the upright Stones in ye inner Circle at Stonehenge," It appears possible that after the letter to Mr. Wyndham was sent, the foregoing note was added as a memorandum to Mr. Cunnington's copy of the letter.

In another copy of this letter in my possession and evidently made at the same time as the other, there is a star at the word "Stonehenge," as above, but the note it refers to appears to have been omitted in the copying, as nothing is written at the bottom of the page.

In another letter, written to John Britton, dated Heytesbury, Nov. 8th, 1802, after referring to various matters concerning Stonehenge, he says:— "I am of opinion that the greater part of the stones were from the Wiltshire downs, the six (?) that are innermost of all are certainly' from the neighbourhood of Frome. I think I showed you a great variety of the stones found in a large oblong barrow near this place that are of the same kind with several of those at Stonehenge."

It is strange that the above important facts do not appear in any account of the various openings that Boles¹ barrow has undergone. It was opened twice by Wm. Cunnington, of Heytesbury, in 1801, and again in 1803, once by Dr. Thurnam, in 1864, and in 1885 and 1886 by Wm. and H. Cunnington of Devizes. (See Ancient Wilts — South, pages 87, 88, Wilts Arch. Mag., vols, xxiii. and xxiv.) This is the only case where it is recorded that the "blue stones" have been found in a long barrow, though broken fragments have been found several times in the round Bronze Age barrows in the immediate vicinity of Stonehenge. Boles Barrow is about six miles from Stonehenge.

It is to be noted that it is not stated in the letter whether the "Blue hard Stone" was in the shape of (a) fragments, presumably from the Stonehenge uprights themselves, as was the case in the round barrows near Stonehenge, in which case their presence would tend to prove that Stonehenge was erected in the Long Barrow period, or (b) in the shape of natural small boulders, in which case their presence would go to reinforce Prof. Judd's theory that the blue stones at Stonehenge were found as drift boulders on the Plain, and would have no bearing on the age of the structure.

B. Howard Cunnington.

Note 1. The spelling of the name "Boles" is Mr. Cunnington's.