Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/198

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172
ENGLAND.
Chap. IV.

appears very doubtful. The slight mound, backed up with large stones, that now surrounds it, with a diameter of 73 to 74 feet, seems an enclosure more like that of Hob Hurst's House (woodcut No. 53) than the remains of a tumulus, and till some further evidence is adduced, we must be allowed to doubt whether any cap stone on legs was ever so treated. Sir Gardner traced, doubtfully, an avenue, of which, however, only five stones now remain, extending to about 500 feet in a direction that would have passed the dolmen on the north, as that at Shap did the circle at its front, or the lines at Merivale Bridge, the circle still found there; Sir Gardner also points out some small circular enclosures, which, from the analogy of those found on Dartmoor, he assumes to be hut-circles.

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53.
Hob Hurst's House, on Baslow Moor, Derbyshire. From a drawing by Thomas Bateman.[1]

What, then, is this group of monuments? Sir Gardner assumes that it is a cemetery of the ancient Britons; but, if so, why are not other cemeteries found in the fertile valleys and plains in South Wales? Why did they choose one of the barest and bleakest hillsides, and one farthest removed from their habitations as a place in which to bury their dead? Why did they not, like the inhabitants of Salisbury Plain, disperse their graves pretty equally over an area of 30 miles by 10? Why crowd them into less than half-a-mile? Without reverting to my previous suggestion of a battle-field, I do not see how these questions can be answered; and if so, I do not think we have far to go to look for its name? As hinted above, Arthur's eighth battle must have been fought in Wales. The name of the place is written Guin (Gwyn), Guinon, Guinnon, Gunnion,[2] which certainly is Welsh; and when we find it imme-


  1. 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 87.
  2. Dare one suggest Gower?