_Nec nulla interea est inaratæ gratia terræ._
so that the covetous farmer and grazier have conspired to abolish this most magnificent monument; and that just about the time I was there. _Charles Tucker_ Esq; late of _East-Kennet_ a gentleman of sense, us’d to be very angry at the ruin of these stones, and prevented it as much as he could.
As to the stones that compos’d this avenue, they were of all shapes, sizes, and height that happen’d, altogether rude. Some we measur’d 6 feet thick, 16 in circumference. If of a flattish make, the broadest dimension was set in the line of the avenue, and the most sightly side of the stone inward. The founders were sensible, all the effect desired in the case, was their bulk and regular station. All the hill tops, especially the _Hakpen_, are adorn’d with barrows as we go along. When the avenue comes to the inclosures aforementioned of _West-Kennet_, it passes through three of them, crosses a little field lane, and the common road from _Marlborough_ to _Bath_, just after the road makes a right angle descending from _Overton-hill_. We must note that we have been a good while ascending again. In this angle the _Roman_-road from _Marlborough_ coming down the hill, enters the common road. This is the _via Badonica_ aforementioned.
_John Fowler_, who kept the alehouse hard by, demolish’d many of these stones by burning. The alehouse (the _white hart_) and the walls about it, were built out of one stone.
_Part of the South Temple from the Central Obelisk 10 July 1723_]
As before, the avenue coming out of _Abury_ town bended itself to the right, now ’tis easily enough discernible, that it makes a mighty curve to the left, the better to imitate the creature it’s intended for.
_Fit lapis, & servat serpentis imagine saxum._ Ovid. Met. XII.
Passing the _Roman_ road, it traverses an angle of a pasture, and falls into the upper part of the same road again, and marches through two more pastures, all along the quickset hedge-side: so that the quick is planted in the very middle of it. Many of the stones are seen lying in their proper places, both in the pastures and in the road. These stones are all thrown down or reclining, and very large. We measur’d one by the style 12 feet long, 6 and a half broad, 3 and a half thick.