_Longstone_ cove, because standing in the open fields, between the _Caln_ road and that to the _Bath_, is more talk’d of by the people of this country, than the larger, and more numerous in _Abury_ town. Dr. _Musgrave_ mentions it in his _Belgium Britannicum_, page 44. and in his map thereof.
Mr. _Aubury_ in his manuscript observations publish’d with Mr. _Camden_’s _Britannia_, speaks of them by the name of the _Devil’s coits_. Three huge stones then standing. It was really a grand and noble work. The stone left standing is 16 feet high, as many broad, 3½ thick. The back stone is fallen flat on the ground, of like dimension.
——_annis solvit sublapsa vetustas: Fertur in abruptum magnus mons_—— Virg. Æn. 12.
The other was carried off by that destroyer _Richard Fowler_, together with many more, but seven years ago (when I was there). The people that saw it broken in pieces by fire, assured me there were perfect flints in its composition and bones. And I verily believe I saw a piece of this same stone in a garden-wall of the little alehouse below in _Bekamton_-road, which had evidently a bone in it. Whence probably we may conclude, that these stones were form’d by nature since _Noah_’s deluge, and these bones are of an antediluvian animal, which casually fell into the petrifying matter. They told me the stone contain’d 20 good loads, that the bones were in the middle of the stone, and as hard as the stone. That stone now standing, was the right hand or eastern jamb of the cove.
A little way hence is a bit of heath-ground, but the plough will soon have devoured it. Here remains a great barrow, call’d _Longstone long barrow_; and from hence we see innumerable more barrows. The avenue continu’d its journey by the corn fields. Three stones lie still by the field-road coming from _South-street_ to the _Caln_-road. Mr. _Alexander_ told me he remember’d several stones standing by the parting of the roads under _Bekamton_, demolish’d by _Richard Fowler_. Then it descends by the road to _Cherill_, ’till it comes to the _Bath_-road, close by the _Roman_-road, and there in the low valley it terminates, near a fine group of barrows, under _Cherill-hill_, in the way to _Oldbury-camp_; this is west of _Bekamton_-village. This point facing that group of barrows and looking up the hill is a most solemn and awful place; a descent all the way from _Longstone_ cove, and directed to a descent, a great way further, down the _Bath_-road, where no less than five valleys meet. And in this very point only you can see the temple on _Overton-hill_, on the south side of _Silbury-hill_.