Books, Prehistory, Avebury A Temple of British Druids, Itinerarium Curiosum 1724, Itinerarium Cuiriosum 1724 Iter IV

From Newberry the Roman road (I believe coming from Silchester) Cunetio passes east and west to Marlborough, the Roman Cunetio¹ named from the river. This town consists chiefly of one broad and strait street, and for the most part upon the original ground-plot; nor does it seem unlikely that the narrow piazza continued all along the sides of the houses is in imitation of them: the square about the church in the eaftern part one may imagine the site of a temple fronting this street: to the south are some reliques of a priory: the gate-house is left: on the north has been another religious house, whereof the chapel remains, now turned into a dwelling-house.

Where now is the seat of my lord Hartford was the site of the Roman castrum, for they find foundations and Roman coins; I saw one of Titus in large brass: but towards the river, and without my lord's garden-walls, is one angle of it left very manifeftly, the rampart and ditch intire: the road going over the bridge cuts it off from the limits of the present cattle: the ditch is still twenty foot broad in some part: it paired originally on the fouth of the summer-house, and so along the garden-wall, where it makes the fence, to the turn of the corner: the mark of it is still apparent broader than the ditch, which has been repaired since, but of narrower dimension: then I suppose it went through the garden by the southern foot of the mount [Marlborough Mound [Map]], and round the house through the court-yard, where I have marked the track thereof with pricked lines in Plate 62. There is a spring in the ditch, so that the foss of the castrum was always full of water. I suppose it to have been five hundred Roman feet square within, and the Roman road through the present street of Marlborough went by the side of it. Afterward, in Saxon or Norman times, they built a larger castle, upon the same ground, after their model, and took in more compass for the mount; which obliged the road to go round it with a turn, till it falls in again on the well side of the mount at the bounds of Preshute parish. Roman coins have been found in shaping the mount; which was the keep of the later castle, and now converted into a pretty spiral walk, on the top of which is an octagonal summer-house represented Tab. I. This neighbouring village, Preshute, has its name from the meadows the church stands in, which are very low: in the windows upon a piece of glass is written, DNS RICHARDUS HIC VICARIUS, who I believe lived formerly in a little house at Marlborough, over-against the castle, now an ale-house, where his name is cut in wood in the same old letters over the door.

Note 1. At Froxfield, south of Ramesbury, upon the via Trinobantica, a Roman villa discovered anno 1724. under a wood two Mosaic pavements. Lord Winchelsea has the drawings of them. Many antiquities found here.

Having recited these matters as preliminary, I shall begin my journey Bath, via from Marlborough, the Roman Cunetio. I forbear speaking of the infinite Badonica of Celtic monuments I have found in this country, designing them for a particular treatise, to be honoured with your lordship's illustrious name; and from Marlborough pursue the Roman road, which we have before traced from Newbury hither, and lately difcovered its whole progrefs toward the Bath, which for diftincfion fake we may call Via Badonica: its Course is east and west: it goes hence all along the north side of the Kennet river, between it and the high grounds; and is the present road, but highly wants a Roman hand to repair it. When we have rode about a mile, over-against Clatford, at a flexure of the river, we meet with several very great stones, about a dozen in number, which probably was a Celtic temple, and stood in a circle: this form in a great measure they still preserve. I guess the Romans buried them in the ground under their road, because directly in its passage: the materials throughout have since been worn away, or sunk into the ground, being in this place meadow, and so has restored their huge bulk to day-light. Hence it proceeds directly up to the famous Overton hill, where I first discovered its ridge, when surveying the beautiful circle of stones there, belonging to the majestic temple of the old Britons at Abury: this ridge is a little to the north of the present road, somewhat higher up the hill; it points diredlly east and west, one end to Marlborough, the other to Silbury hill: and this shows a defect in our maps, which place Abury too much to the south: it is perfect for some space over the down; but upon descending the hill westward, they have ploughed it up, and found several Roman coins near it, some of which I have by me.¹

Note 1. Captain Madox sent me some Roman coins; a Maximian pretty large, LON...; with an instrument of brass.