WILTSHIRE.

for the purpose of furnishing the reader with a general and familiar acquaintance with their external characteristics. To effect this end it will be advisable to class them under heads, which may serve to designate their forms and peculiarities, rather than their respective eras of construction. Discussions on this point, as well as specific descriptions, will be found in subsequent pages, where the objects occur in topographical arrangement.

The remains of antiquity in Wiltshire, first entitled to notice, in a collective view, are the stupendous monuments at Avebury, and Stonehenge, both of which are commonly regarded as Druidical temples. In these structures we are presented with the most wonderful works of a rude, bat powerful, people: works in which the bodily strength of associated numbers, with the science and customs of their age, are strongly manifested; and which are calculated not only to excite the astounded gaze and amazement of the multitude, but also to rouse curiosity, and awaken enquiry in the minds of antiquaries and historians.

Next to these immense temples, because resembling them in relative magnitude, though totally dissimilar in kind, the Wansdyke may properly claim attention, This vast earth-work, which is supposed to have originally intersected the whole county, is now only distinctly visible in detached places, except throughout the range of hills to the south and west of Marlborough, where it still remains tolerably entire, and in one place is seen in a bold The and connected line for the space of ten or twelve miles. construction of this work, as already mentioned, is referred by some authors to the Aboriginal inhabitants of the island, and by others to the Belgæ, whilst a third class of writers ascribe it to the West Saxons.

BARROWS, or TUMULI.-Of nearly equal antiquity to the monuments already named, are the artificial hillocks, or mounds of earth, which abound in this county, and which appear to have an intimate connection with those temples, as they are more numerous around Stonehenge and Avebury, than in any other places. These memorials were undoubtedly appropriated to sepulchral purposes. VOL. XV,-Jan. 1813.

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purposes. By the researches of Mr. Cunnington, Sir Richard C. Hoare, the Rev. James Douglas,† and a few other enlightened antiquaries, we are made familiar with the contents of these sacred depositories, and in the course of our subsequent pages we shall have occasion to give an account of some of the more remarkable ones, among which Silbury-Hill will demand particular atten

tion..

The ROMAN STATIONS mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus, as being situated within the county, are three in number: Sorbiodunum, Verlucio, and Cunetio. The first of these is placed by all antiquaries at Old Sarum; but the situation of the other two has been much disputed. Camden fixes Verlucio at Westbury; Horsley at Lackham; and Stukeley, whose opinion is the most probable, in the neighbourhood of Heddington. Cunetio was formerly supposed by some writers to be at the village of Kennet, and by others at the present town of Marlborough; but it is now generally allowed to have been situated at a short distance east from the latter place, near the north-eastern boundary of Savernake Forest. Besides these the Romans had several other settlements in this county: particularly at Easton-Grey; at Wanborough, near Heytesbury; and at Littlecot.

Of the Roman Roads which passed through Wiltshire, the principal was a continuation of the Julia-Strata. This road entering the county from Bath (Aqua Solis) near Bathford, ran north-easterly by Medley and Spy-park to Verlucio, (near Heddington, (and thence by Colston and Kennet to Cunetio, in its way to Spinae, (or Spene). The Fosse-Road struck off from the Julia-Strata at Bathford, and continued by Banner-Down, Easton-Grey, across the turnpike-road between Tetbury and Malmsbury, to Cirencester, (Corinium, or Durocornovium.) Another great road proceeded from this station in a south-east direction by Cricklade to Wanborough, where it separated into two branches, the one continuing by Baydon to Spene, and the

"Ancient Wiltshire," folio, and Archæologia, Vol. XV.

"Nennia Britannia," folio.

other

other by Ogburne, Mildenhall, Tottenham, and Marton, through Chute-park to Winchester. Several other roads connected Sorbiodunum with neighbouring stations, and of these three are traced with considerable certainty: 1st. one which led to Durnovaria, or Dorchester, and passed by Bemerton Church, Tony-Strat ford, Woodyates-Inn, and Bradbury, in Dorsetshire.-2dly. That to Venta-Belgarum, Winchester, by Ford and Winterslow Mill, Buccold Farm, and Bossington. And, 3dly. Another to Vindonum, or Silchester, which run north-easterly by Porton and Idmiston, and quitted this county near Benson's Folly. A fourth, in all probability, led northerly to the station of Cunetio; a fifth, south-westerly towards Iscalia, or Ilchester; and a sixth to Aqua-Solis, or Bath, by Bishops-Trow, and Yarnbury, Scratchbury, and Battlesbury Castles. The RIDGEWAY is also mentioned by Whitaker as a Roman road, but his opinion is most certainly erroneous, as this work is totally different in character from any road of that people known in England. Its situation, indeed, evidently points it out to be of British origin. It is distinctly visible on the high ridge which extends from Avebury, in a northeasterly direction, to Berkshire, and in some places across that county towards Dorchester, in Oxfordshire.

The numerous ENCAMPMENTS, and other intrenched earthenworks with which Wiltshire abounds, vary much not only in size and shape, but in method of construction and peculiarity of situation. Some of these are doubtless the works of the Britons, others of the Belgæ, of the Romans, of the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans; many of them, however, have been, in all probability, successively occupied and altered by the armies of one or more of these nations, at different periods, subsequent to their original formation. The immense fortifications of Old Sarum, Chidburyhill, and Vespasian's camp, near Amesbury, constitute the most noted monuments, in this class of antiquities, which we shall have occasion to notice in our description of the county. Many others are perhaps of equal extent, and scarcely less interesting: but, dropping for the present all further distinctions, we shall

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shall only remark that ENCAMPMENTS* are discovered at, or near, each of the following places: on Whitesheet-Hill, ClayHill, Warminster-Down, Whiten-Hill, Cotley-Hill, KnightonDown, Pewsey-Heath, Oldbury-Hill near Calne, RoundwayHill near Devizes, Martinsall-Hill near Marlborough, Chidbury-Hill near Ludgershall, Bluusden-Hill near Highworth, Beacon-Hill, Southley-Wood, Roddenbury, Hays, Bratton, Battlesbury, Scratchbury, Knook, Yarnbury, Bilbury, HangingLangford, Grovely, East-Castle, Rolston, Casterley, Chilbury, Haydon, Godbury, Ledbury, Ogbury, Newton-Toney, Alderbury, Whichbury, Clearbury, Winkelbury, Broad-Chalke, Chiselbury, Woodyates-Inn, Spelbury near Fovant, Denton, and Little PathHill. These entrenchments are generally supposed to have been thrown up for military purposes; but there are a variety of other earthen works spread over Salisbury Plain and Marlborough Downs, the precise intention of which is extremely doubtful. Some of them are considered by Sir Richard Hoare as the sites of British villages; and others as denoting places consecrated to religion.

CASTLES. That this county, at an early period, contained a number of those baronial fortified structures, which are usually designated by the term castles, and which are supposed by several writers to have been first introduced by the Normans, is undoubted. Most of them, however, are now totally demolished, so that it is even difficult to ascertain their actual sites; and the rest have been so much altered, in later times, as almost to efface every vestige of the original building. The more celebrated of these edifices, and those which most frequently occur in the

ancient

• The terms Camp, Castle, and Encampment, are often indiscriminately applied to the same object: and hence, without description, we are generally at a loss to understand the nature and character of the place. In order to obviate a similar error, we shall always apply the word Castle to a fortified building; Encampment to an area inclosed by valla and fossa, with its connected outwork; and Camp, to the army stationed within the same castrametations.

ancient historians, are the Castles of Marlborough, Devizes, Ludgershall, Wardour, Combe, and Malmesbury. Old Sarum, though often called the "Castle of Old Sarum," does not belong to the class now under consideration; for it was originally a fortified town, or station, with a fortress in the centre. Several earth-works, or castrametations, in the county, are popularly, but very inaccurately, designated by the name of castle.

Besides these, many lesser vestiges of antiquity have been discovered in Wiltshire at different periods; such as tessellated pavements, coins, urns, fragments of sculpture, daggers, shields, gold and silver ornaments, and a vast variety of other articles of British, Roman, Saxon, Norman, and English manufacture; but it will be unnecessary to specify them here, as the principal of them will be noticed in describing the places where they were found.

GENERAL ASPECT.---In a geographical arrangement, Wiltshire may be said to be naturally divided into two portions by an irregular range of hills, which extends transversely through the greater part of the county, in a direction inclining from the northeast to the south-west. These districts are usually denominated South and North Wiltshire, and differ very materially from each other, not only in appearance, but in almost every distinguishing quality.

South Wiltshire, which claims priority of notice, on account of its superior extent, forms the western division of a vast tract of chalk-hills, comprising a considerable part of Hampshire, and having for its boundaries the rich lands of Berkshire, and the extreme verge of the Marlborough hills on the north; the broken ground of Somersetshire on the west; the New Forest of Hampshire on the south; and the heaths of Surrey and Sussex, together with the West Downs of the latter county, on the east. This portion of Wiltshire presents to the eye, when surveyed from a distance, the appearance of a large elevated plain: on a nearer inspection, however, it offers a somewhat different aspect. The spectator now perceives it to be indented by numerous, and frequently extensive, vallies, and to display an almost continual

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series