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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Historical Tour in Monmouthshire is in Prehistory.
An Historical Tour in Monmouthshire; Illustrated With Views By Sir R. C. Hoare, Bart. A New Map Of The County, and Other Engravings: By William Coxe, AM. FRS. FAS. Rector Of Bemerton And Stouurton. Part The Second. London: Printed For T. Cadell, Jun. And W. Davies, In The Strand. 1801.
From Monmouth I made an excursion to the village of Trelech, remarkable for three druidical stones [Harold's Stones, Trellech [Map]], which stand in a field adjoining the high road, at a small distance from the church, and from which the place is said to derive its appellation. Some persons have erroneously supposed that they once supported a cromlech, which is impossible, because the distance of the middle stone from the smallest is not less than fourteen feet, and from the largest near twenty. The perpendicular height of the smallest is nine feet two inches, of the middle ten feet one inch, and of the largest eleven feet ten inches; they all incline; the largest is fifteen feet long above the ground, and fourteen in circumference at the base.
These masses are a composition of pebbles and cement, so soft as to crumble under the touch; the outside of the stone which is exposed to the air is grey; but when broken the natural colour appears to be red. The strata of the neighbouring rocks consist of this substance, and fragments of a similar kind are spread over Trelech common.
The natives call them Harold's stones, and suppose they allude to his victory over the Britons, but the rudeness of their form evidently proves them anterior to the æra in which he flourished; they are probably British remains of great antiquity, erected either as places of worship or as sepulchral memorials. If we may judge from the number of these druidical stones in the vicinity, Trelech was once a distinguished place. Half a mile from the village, to the left of the road leading to Monmouth, I observedi in the midst of an open common, another of these stones placed upright, near seven feet high, and surrounded by a small circular trench. On the opposite side of the road is a low mound, with scattered fragments of stones which appear to have been placed in a circular form.