Biography of Hugh Percy 2nd Duke Northumberland 1742-1817

Diary of a Dean by Merewether. 1849. The tumulus [Map] was originally formed upon the gradual slope of a hill, rising from north to south at an angle of about four degrees from its point of section with the horizontal base-line of the natural hill. The circumference of the tumulus, after the removal for its formation of the before-mentioned natural hill on the east, north, and west sides to a very considerable extent, is 1550 feet; and it is remarkable, although I have not seen it noticed by former writers, that the verge of the base is set round with sarsen¹ stones, 3 or 4 feet in diameter, and at intervals of about 18 feet; of these, however, only eight are now visible, although others may be covered with the detritus of the sloping sides of the tumulus, and overgrown with turf. The tumulus rises at an angle of 32 degrees, is in its vertical measurement 125 feet high, and has on its summit a level area of about 100 feet in diameter, in which are still observable the remains of the shaft worked in 1777 by the Duke of Northumberland and Colonel Drax, and the mounds of earth which the excavators had not taken the trouble to throw in. It is much to be regretted that no detailed account of these operations is upon record, and it is hardly credible that they could have been completed without some account of their progress and the discoveries effected, and perhaps even yet such documents may come to light² On the south the original constructors of this stupendous mound left two narrow isthmuses of earth, connecting it with the original hill, about 20 feet below its summit, on the north side of the London and Bath road, and about 19 feet above the (geometrical) base of the tumulus. From the western isthmus the tunnel was commenced. The first 75 feet were cut through the natural and compact bed of chalk—the structure of the original hill; but at that distance the upper line of the tunnel cut into the surface of the original hill, which was clearly marked by the vegetable mould, and upon that by a layer of bluish clay about 2 inches thick, very soft and tenacious, which represented evidently the decayed and compressed turf and grass on the former surface of the hill; above this was the brownish earthy, chalky rubble, the artificial components of the mound differing from that nearer to the centre, as that was piled up from a moist, this from a higher and drier situation. The workmen were continually progressing day and night, as each of the three gangs worked eight hours, three men only at a time having room to excavate, fill and wheel the barrows. From the points of junction of the tunnel in the natural chalk with the line of the surface of the original hill, they followed that line as their guide, keeping it about 2 feet below the ceiling of the tunnel; inasmuch as there could be little doubt that whatever deposit might be found would be either on the surface of the original ground near the centre, or in a cist formed immediately below that line.

Note 1. 'Sarsen' is the name given by the inhabitants of this district to the fine compact white sandstones of which Avebury Temple, Stonehenge, the Cromlech [Map] at Clatford, and the Grey Wethers, are composed; and of which there are tens of thousands still scattered over these hills and their valleys; some having evidently formed cistvaens, with the gallery of approach to the chamber, some cromlechs, some avenues of approach to consecrated spots, some circles round the sepulchral deposits, some lines of demarcation, few of which are known as they deserve to be, and all, alas, are annually reduced in their number by the appropriation of them to the purposes of building. The stone for the new railway-bridge at Windsor is taken from Clatford Bottom [Map]. The cromlech [Map] there I recollect when it stood in the midst of the Valley of Stones; now it is surrounded by a field of turnips.

Note 2. The following are statements made by two old men as to the former examination of Silbury Hill:

Richard Maskelyn, of Beckhampton, aged eighty, has often heard his father tell of the miners out of Cornwall that cut in to Silbury Hill; they went, as he heard, down to the bottom, and they found "a man."

John Blake, of Avebury, aged ninety-five years, states that he recollects when the miners from Cornwall dug into Silbury Hill; it was when he was keeping company with his first wife, and was about twenty years of age. He went with her to see the place, and they cut her gown. They went down to the bottom, and found a man — i. e. a skeleton, in the phraseology of the Wiltshire Downs, where the flint-diggers are constantly in the habit of finding skeletons, both in the barrows and frequently on the verge or slope of them, as well as in the plain down, unmarked by any irregularity of surface. These two old men, therefore, may have been led to infer what was expected, and to declare that "a man" was found; though such assertion indicates rather what they would deem likely than the positive fact.

I subjoin the only record of this operation known, extracted from Douglas's Nenia Britannica, 1793, p. 161:

"The great hill of Silbury, generally considered as a barrow, was opened by the direction of the late Duke of Northumberland and Colonel Drax, under the supposition of its being a place of sepulture. Miners from Cornwall were employed, and great labour bestowed upon it. The only relic found at the bottom, and which Colonel Drax shewed me, was a thin slip of oak-wood: by burning the end of it in a wax-taper we proved it not to be whalebone, which had been so reported. The smell of vegetable substance soon convinced the Colonel of his mistake. He had a fancy that this hill was raised over a Druid oak, and he thought the remains of it were discovered in the excavation; there was, however, no reason for considering it to have been a place of sepulture by the digging into it. The bit of a bridle discovered by Stukeley, and his assertion of a monarch being buried there, has only the pleasure of conception to recommend it. It is not likely the monarch would have been buried near its surface, when such an immense mound of earth had been raised for the purpose; and the time in raising it would not agree with the nature of a funeral obsequy, which must require a greater degree of expedition."