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The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.

Winterbourne Basset Stone Circle, Selkley Hundred, Wiltshire, South-West England, British Isles [Map]

Winterbourne Basset Stone Circle is in Winterbourne Basset, Wiltshire [Map], Avebury Stone Circles.

Avebury by William Stukeley. If we descend the Hakpen-hill [Map], westward from hence towards Winterburn-basset, upon the declivity of the Hakpen, is another Druid's house, called too Old Chapel. 'Tis a square, double ditched, but small ditches, in the middle a broad oblong square bank. Before it a sort of court, nearly as big as the other. Near it, they say, they have found much old iron and pewter. It seems to have been set round with stones [Winterbourne Basset Stone Circle [Map]].

Avebury by William Stukeley. At Winterburn-basset, a little north of Abury, in a field north-west of the church, upon elevated ground, is a double circle of stones concentric, 60 cubits diameter. The two circles [Winterbourne Basset Stone Circle [Map]] are near one another, so that one may walk between. Many of the stones have of late been carryed away. West of it is a single, broad, flat, and high stone, standing by itself. And about as far northward from the circle, in a ploughed field, is a barrow set round with, or rather composed of large stones. I take this double circle to have been a family-chapel, as we may call it, to an archdruid dwelling near thereabouts, whilst Abury was his cathedral.

1724. An unpublished pen and ink wash sketch of Winterbourne Basset Stone Circle [Map] by Stukeley, archived amongst the Gough Maps at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Gough Maps 231 Fol 216).

Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 1857 V4 Pages 307-363. "At Winterbourne Basset, (about three miles) north of Abury, a field north west of the church, upon elevated ground, is a double circle of stones [Winterbourne Basset Stone Circle [Map]], concentric, 60 cubits diameter. The two circles are near one another, so that one may walk between. Many of the stones have of late been carried away. West of it is a single, broad, flat, and high stone, standing by itself; and about as far northward from the circle, in a ploughed field, is a barrow set round with, or rather composed of large stones."1 "By the above description, I was enabled," says Sir R. Hoare, "to find the remains of this circle, which is situated in a pasture ground at the angle of a road leading to Broad Hinton, and consists at present only of a few inconsiderable stones."2

Note 1. Stukeley's Abury, p. 45.

Note 2. Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, ii. p. 95.

Winterbourne Basset Stone Circle [Map]. 1884 plan by A C Smith.