A View of the Remains of the Northern Temple at Abury. Aug. 1722.
A. _Abury Steeple._ B. _the cove._ C. _Windmill hill._]
Exactly in the southern end of the line that connects the two centers of these temples, _viz._ in that pasture mark’d IX. in our ground-plot, is an odd stone standing, not of great bulk. It has a hole wrought in it, and probably was design’d to fasten the victim, in order for slaying it. This I call the _ring-stone_. From this we may infer the like use of that stone at _Stonehenge_, in the avenue near the entrance into the area of the temple. I spoke of it under the name of _crwm leche_, p. 33. It has a like hole in it.
These two temples were all that was standing originally in the great area, within the circular colonnade. Very probably it was the most magnificent patriarchal temple in the world. Now a whole village of about thirty houses is built within it. This area would hold an immense number of people at their panegyres and public festivals; and when the _vallum_ all around was cover’d with spectators, it form’d a most noble amphitheater, and had an appearance extremely august, during the administration of religious offices.
————_ter denas curia vaccas Accipit, & largo sparsa cruore madet._ Ovid. fast. IV.
Each of these temples is four times as big as _Stonehenge_.
About 1694, _Walter Stretch_, father of one of the present inhabitants, found out the way of demolishing these stones by fire. He exercis’d this at first on one of the stones standing in the street before the inn, belonging to the outer circle of the southern temple. That one stone, containing 20 loads, built the dining-room end of the inn. Since then _Tom Robinson_, another _Herostratus_ of the place, made cruel havock among them. He own’d to us, that two of them cost eight pounds in the execution. Farmer _Green_ ruin’d many of the southern temple to build his houses and walls at _Bekamton_. Since then many others have occasionally practis’d the sacrilegious method, and most of the houses, walls, and outhouses in the town are raised from these materials. Sir _Robert Holford_ resented this destruction of them; and _Reuben Horsall_, parish-clerk, had a due veneration for these sacred remains, and assisted me in the best intelligence he was able to give. Concerning the purport of the disposition and manner of the temple hitherto described, I shall speak more largely in chap. X. toward the end, concluding this with an inscription of the _Triopian_ farm consecrated by _Herodes Atticus_.