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LV. A Letter from the Reverend Dr. James Garden, Professor of Theology in the King's College at Aberdeen, to John Aubrey, Esq. on the circular Stone Monuments in Scotland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Extract
Yours, dated at London, April 9th, 1692, came to my hands about ten days after; since that time, I have been using my best endeavours for obtaining a satisfactory answer to your queries: if that which I now send you be not such as I desired, and, it may be, you expected, it is none of my fault: for I not only visited sundry of those antiquities (to the number of six or seven), concerning which you desire to be informed; but also employed the assistance of my friends, whereof some were going from this place to other parts of the country, and others live at a distance. I have been waiting all this time for an account of their diligence; and albeit I have not heard as yet from all those persons to whom I wrote and spoke for information, yet I thought it not fit to delay the giving you a return any longer, lest you should apprehend, either that your letter had miscarried, or that I had neglected the contents of it.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1779
References
page 315 note [a] J. G. Keysler, in his “Antiquitates selectae Septentr. et Celt.” pag. 11, after some account of Stone-henge (which he takes to be the work of the Anglo-Saxons) and other the like monuments, adds, “Supersunt in ipsa Anglia complura “ejusmodi monumenta, inter quae eminent vasta saxa, in orbem disposita, in Oxo- “niensi comitatu, quae Rollerick-stones vulgus appellate Vide Plot's Nat, Hist. “Oxf. cap. 10. De iis quae in Devonia haud procul Exonia exstant, Mighty stones “dicta. Vide Speed. Quinque millibus passuum a Bristolio, meridiem versus, “et uno milliari Anglico a Pensfordia, qua spectat ad occidentem solem, rudera “restant duorum ejusmodi operum, quorum alterum una lapidum corona, alte- “rum tribus constitisse videtur. Illud, si reliquorum dimensionem sequamur, 32 “eximiae magnitudinis lapides habuit, quorum non nisi 13 superstites, in terran “omnes dejecti aut proni, exceptis tribus. Centum ulnis Brunsvicensibus (60 fere “Anglicis Yards) ab iis conspiciuntur majores duo lapides, quos recentiores “quidam scriptores perperam nominant The King and Queen stolen, regis reginae- “que sedes; incolae appellant The Parson and Clerk, fabulantes choream Die Do- “minica saltantium, una cum sacerdote et sidicinibus in lapides suisse versam. “Nonnulla hojusmodi monumenta visuntur etiam in Orcadibus insulis. De Sco- “ticis conserri debent quae Hector Boethius habet in Hist. Scot. De ingentibua “et rudibus faxis, quae haud longe a Naasa Hiberniae, in agro Kildariensi et alibi “cernuntur, lege Ware, Antiq. Hibern. cap. xxiv. pag, 103. et feq.” T. M.
page 318 note [b] In Wiltshire, in the parish of Winterbourne, in the tithing of Ricardson, is a fair Down called Temple Down, which is in the country of those Temples I write of. Quere, if not in Dorset? C. L. I find no such monument placed in Wiltshire in Aubrey's Monumenta Britannica, so that he probably here refers to that in Winterbourne Abbas parish in Dorset. See Hutchins I. 303. R. G.
Not far from Marlborough, is a village called Presholt, perhaps it might be Priests Hole (i. e.) Priests Wood. Mr. Aubrey.
page 318 note [c] From their (viz. barrows, heaps of stones, &c.) being intended for sepulchres, they are called Lows in Staffordshire, and Lawes in Ireland. Antiq. Corn, first edit. pag. 200.
page 320 note [d] The very ingenious author of Topographical Anecdotes, under the article Inverness-Shire, p. 647, informs us, that Mr. Gordon in his Itin. Septentr. p. 166. pl. LXV. has given a particular description and view of two of the four circular buildings mentioned by Buchanan, lib. i. and iv. as in Ross, now in this shire, in the vale of Glenbeg. Martin mentions several such in Lewis Isle. Dr. Stukeley had an unpublished plate of that which Gordon calls Castle Tellve, and he, the Giant's Castle. He makes them Druidical temples, and his sketch of the vale exhibits a circle of stones with an avenue at the head of a little river. He says, Captain Douglas told him there were vast numbers of stones like Stonehenge, with avenues of stones all over Scotland. T. M.