people that made these durable mausolea had a very strong hope of the resurrection of their bodies, as well as souls, who thus provided against their being disturbed." Stukeley's large view, taken from the south, shows no peribolus of stones on that side; but in two distant views six or eight standing stones appear at the east end. The rest of these stones, figured by Aubrey sixty years previously, had probably been removed by that great depredator of the Avebury circles and avenues, " Farmer Green," who, about the year 1710, as we learn from Stukeley, removed similar stones from a neighbouring barrow, "to make mere-stones withal"—the boundaries probably of his own sheep-walks. Among the unpublished papers of Stukeley's, referred to in a previous note, is a further notice of this tumulus, as to which he says, "Dr. Took, as they call him,[1] has miserably defaced South Long Barrow by digging half the length of it. It was most neatly smoothed up to a sharp ridge, to throw off the rain, and some of the stones are very large."
Sir Richard Hoare's researches in this neighbourhood were made about the year 1814. He speaks of this tumulus as one of the most remarkable of several stupendous long barrows in the neighbourhood of Abury. "According to the measurement we made," he adds, "it extends in length 344 feet; it rises, as usual, towards the east end, where several stones appear above ground; and here, if uncovered, we should probably find the interment, and perhaps a subterraneous kistvaen.[2]"
In 1849 it was visited and described by the late Dr. Merewether, Dean of Hereford, who very much underrates the length of the barrow, but whose description in other respects is both more full and more accurate than those of his predecessors. "At the east end," says he, "were lying in a dislodged condition at least thirty sarsen stones, in which might clearly be traced the chamber formed by the side uprights and large transom stones, and the similar but lower and smaller passage leading to it; and below, round the base of the east end, were to be seen the portion of the circle or semicircle of stones bounding it."[3]
South Long Barrow has suffered much at the hands of the cultivators of the soil. Whilst the "Farmer Green" of Stukeley's days seems to have removed nearly all the stones which bounded its base, two being all which remain
- ↑ Meaning no doubt the Doctor Toope, whose letter to Aubrey is preserved in his "Monumenta Britannica."
- ↑ Ancient Wilts, vol. ii. p. 96.
- ↑ Proceedings Arch. Inst. at Salisbury, 1849, p. 97. A very similar description is that by Mr. Long, in his paper on Abury in the Wilts Arch. and Nat. Hist. Mag. vol. iv. p. 342. Mr. Long's measurements, however, are much more accurate than those of the Dean.
