THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS

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CHAPTER VIII

THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS

We still find in various parts of the country traces of the prehistoric races who

inhabited our island and left their footprints behind them, which startle us as much

as ever the print of Friday's feet did the indomitable Robinson Crusoe. During the

last fifty years we have been collecting the weapons and implements of early man,

and have learnt that the history of Britain did not begin with the year B.C. 55, when

Julius Cæsar attempted his first conquest of our island. Our historical horizon has

been pushed back very considerably, and every year adds new knowledge

concerning the Palæolithic and Neolithic races, and the first users of bronze and

iron tools and weapons. We have learnt to prize what they have left, to recognize

the immense archæological value of these remains, and of their inestimable

prehistoric interest. It is therefore very deplorable to discover that so much has been

destroyed, obliterated, and forgotten.

We have still some left. Examples are still to be seen of megalithic structures,

barrows, cromlechs, camps, earthen or walled castles, hut-circles, and other

remains of the prehistoric inhabitants of these islands. We have many monoliths,

called in Wales and Cornwall, as also in Brittany, menhirs, a name derived from the

Celtic word maen or men, signifying a stone, and hir meaning tall. They are also

called logan stones and "hoar" stones, hoar meaning a boundary, inasmuch as they

were frequently used in later times to mark the boundary of an estate, parish, or

manor. A vast number have been torn down and used as gateposts or for building

purposes, and a recent observer in the West Country states that he has looked in

vain for several where he knew that not long ago they existed. If in the Land's End

district you climb the ascent of Bolleit, the Place of Blood, where Athelstan fought

and slew the Britons, you can see "the Pipers," two great menhirs, twelve and

sixteen feet high, and the Holed Stone, which is really an ancient cross, but you will

be told that the cruel Druids used to tie their human victims for sacrifice to this

stone, and you would shudder at the memory if you did not know that the Druids

were very philosophical folk, and never did such dreadful deeds.

Another kind of megalithic monument are the stone circles, only they are circles no

longer, many stones having been carted away to mend walls. If you look at the

ordnance map of Penzance you will find large numbers of these circles, but if you

visit the spots where they are supposed to be, you will find that many have

vanished. The "Merry Maidens," not far from the "Pipers," still remain--nineteen

great stones, which fairy-lore perhaps supposes to have been once fair maidens who

danced to the tune the pipers played ere a Celtic Medusa gazed at them and turned

them into stone. Every one knows the story of the Rollright stones, a similar stone

circle in Oxfordshire, which were once upon a time a king and his army, and were

converted into stone by a witch who cast a fatal spell upon them by the words--

Move no more; stand fast, stone;

King of England thou shalt none.

The solitary stone is the ambitious monarch who was told by an oracle that if he

could see Long Compton he would be king of England; the circle is his army, and

the five "Whispering Knights" are five of his chieftains, who were hatching a plot

against him when the magic spell was uttered. Local legends have sometimes

helped to preserve these stones. The farmers around Rollright say that if these

stones are removed from the spot they will never rest, but make mischief till they

are restored. There is a well-known cromlech at Stanton Drew, in Somerset, and

there are several in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and Brittany. Some sacrilegious

persons transported a cromlech from the Channel Islands, and set it up at Park

Place, Henley-on-Thames. Such an act of antiquarian barbarism happily has few

imitators.

Stonehenge, with its well-wrought stones and gigantic trilitha, is one of the latest of

the stone circles, and was doubtless made in the Iron Age, about two hundred years

before the Christian era. Antiquarians have been very anxious about its safety. In

1900 one of the great upright stones fell, bringing down the cross-piece with it, and

several learned societies have been invited by the owner, Sir Edmund Antrobus, to

furnish recommendations as to the best means of preserving this unique memorial

of an early race. We are glad to know that all that can be done will be done to keep

Stonehenge safe for future generations.

We need not record the existence of dolmens, or table-stones, the remains of burial

mounds, which have been washed away by denudation, nor of what the French folk

call alignements, or lines of stones, which have suffered like other megalithic

monuments. Barrows or tumuli are still plentiful, great mounds of earth raised to

cover the prehistoric dead. But many have disappeared. Some have been worn

down by ploughing, as on the Berkshire Downs. Others have been dug into for

gravel. The making of golf-links has disturbed several, as at Sunningdale, where

several barrows were destroyed in order to make a good golf-course. Happily their

contents were carefully guarded, and are preserved in the British Museum and in

that of Reading. Earthworks and camps still guard the British ancient roads and

trackways, and you still admire their triple vallum and their cleverly protected

entrance. Happily the Earthworks Committee of the Congress of Archæological

Societies watches over them, and strives to protect them from injury. Pit-dwellings

and the so-called "ancient British villages" are in many instances sorely neglected,

and are often buried beneath masses of destructive briers and ferns. We can still

trace the course of several of the great tribal boundaries of prehistoric times, the

Grim's dykes that are seen in various parts of the country, gigantic earthworks that

so surprised the Saxon invaders that they attributed them to the agency of the Devil

or Grim. Here and there much has vanished, but stretches remain with a high bank

twelve or fourteen feet high and a ditch; the labour of making these earthen

ramparts must have been immense in the days when the builders of them had only

picks made out of stag's horns and such simple tools to work with.

Along some of our hillsides are curious turf-cut monuments, which always attract

our gaze and make us wonder who first cut out these figures on the face of the

chalk hill. There is the great White Horse on the Berkshire Downs above Uffington,

which we like to think was cut out by Alfred's men after his victory over the Danes

on the Ashdown Hills. We are told, however, that that cannot be, and that it must

have been made at least a thousand years before King Alfred's glorious reign. Some

of these monuments are in danger of disappearing. They need scouring pretty

constantly, as the weeds and grass will grow over the face of the bare chalk and

tend to obliterate the figures. The Berkshire White Horse wanted grooming badly a

short time ago, and the present writer was urged to approach the noble owner, the

Earl of Craven, and urge the necessity of a scouring. The Earl, however, needed no

reminder, and the White Horse is now thoroughly groomed, and looks as fit and

active as ever. Other steeds on our hillsides have in modern times been so cut and

altered in shape that their nearest relations would not know them. Thus the White

Horse at Westbury, in Wiltshire, is now a sturdy-looking little cob, quite up to date

and altogether modern, very different from the old shape of the animal.

The vanishing of prehistoric monuments is due to various causes. Avebury had at

one time within a great rampart and a fosse, which is still forty feet deep, a large

circle of rough unhewn stones, and within this two circles each containing a smaller

concentric circle. Two avenues of stones led to the two entrances to the space

surrounded by the fosse. It must have been a vast and imposing edifice, much more

important than Stonehenge, and the area within this great circle exceeds twenty-

eight acres, with a diameter of twelve hundred feet. But the spoilers have been at

work, and "Farmer George" and other depredators have carted away so many of the

stones, and done so much damage, that much imagination is needed to construct in

the eye of the mind this wonder of the world.

Every one who journeys from London to Oxford by the Great Western Railway

knows the appearance of the famous Wittenham Clumps, a few miles from historic

Wallingford. If you ascend the hill you will find it a paradise for antiquaries. The

camp itself occupies a commanding position overlooking the valley of the Thames,

and has doubtless witnessed many tribal fights, and the great contest between the

Celts and the Roman invaders. In the plain beneath is another remarkable

earthwork. It was defended on three sides by the Thames, and a strong double

rampart had been made across the cord of the bow formed by the river. There was

also a trench which in case of danger could have been filled with water. But the

spoiler has been at work here. In 1870 a farmer employed his men during a hard

winter in digging down the west side of the rampart and flinging the earth into the

fosse. The farmer intended to perform a charitable act, and charity is said to cover a

multitude of sins; but his action was disastrous to antiquaries and has almost

destroyed a valuable prehistoric monument. There is a noted camp at Ashbury,

erroneously called "Alfred's Castle," on an elevated part of Swinley Down, in

Berkshire, not far from Ashdown Park, the seat of the Earl of Craven. Lysons tells

us that formerly there were traces of buildings here, and Aubrey says that in his

time the earthworks were "almost quite defaced by digging for sarsden stones to

build my Lord Craven's house in the park." Borough Hill Camp, in Boxford parish,

near Newbury, has little left, so much of the earth having been removed at various

times. Rabbits, too, are great destroyers, as they disturb the original surface of the

ground and make it difficult for investigators to make out anything with certainty.

Sometimes local tradition, which is wonderfully long-lived, helps the archæologist

in his discoveries. An old man told an antiquary that a certain barrow in his parish

was haunted by the ghost of a soldier who wore golden armour. The antiquary

determined to investigate and dug into the barrow, and there found the body of a

man with a gold or bronze breastplate. I am not sure whether the armour was gold

or bronze. Now here is an amazing instance of folk-memory. The chieftain was

buried probably in Anglo-Saxon times, or possibly earlier. During thirteen hundred

years, at least, the memory of that burial has been handed down from father to son

until the present day. It almost seems incredible.

It seems something like sacrilege to disturb the resting-places of our prehistoric

ancestors, and to dig into barrows and examine their contents. But much knowledge

of the history and manners and customs of the early inhabitants of our island has

been gained by these investigations. Year by year this knowledge grows owing to

the patient labours of industrious antiquaries, and perhaps our predecessors would

not mind very much the disturbing of their remains, if they reflected that we are

getting to know them better by this means, and are almost on speaking terms with

the makers of stone axes, celts and arrow-heads, and are great admirers of their skill

and ingenuity. It is important that all these monuments of antiquity should be

carefully preserved, that plans should be made of them, and systematic

investigations undertaken by competent and skilled antiquaries. The old stone

monuments and the later Celtic crosses should be rescued from serving such

purposes as brook bridges, stone walls, stepping-stones, and gate-posts and reared

again on their original sites. They are of national importance, and the nation should

do this.

Half-timber Cottages, Waterside, Evesham

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