Lansdown, in memory of his grandfather Bevil Granvile, slain here in
a battle with the parliament forces. Hence, it being a north-west
precipice, is a prospect of Bristol, the Severn, &c. This road seems
to be the Ricning-street, called Langridge, going to the passage over
the Severn, the ancient _Trajectus_ and so along the east side of the
Severn, and into Yorkshire. The ground hereabouts is very red, covering
a solid rock of stone, which lies in thin layers parallel to the
horizon, with as much exactness as if hewn for courses in a wall: this
stone is full of little shells; and of this sort is the monument of
Julius Vitalis: between the _strata_ are crystallizations or fluors of
petrifying juices: all the stone in this country abounds with curious
fossils. As you walk along a new paved road, it is very common to
find very great _cornua ammonis_, two foot diameter, laid in among the
rest; and, though formed with such admirable curiosity, yet the country
people walk carelessly over them, as I observed, whilst a horse will
startle at so unusual an appearance: the first I saw in the Foss road,
going up the hill south of Bath, I took for the image of the Sun, which
I remembered to have seen prints of, as it was in _basso relievo_ in
the city-walls, with his hair flowing round like rays; and this was
well enough represented in a stone that had been worn a little: but
I was soon undeceived, when I found great numbers of the same sort
further on.[132]
[Illustration: 49 +Roman Inscriptions+
_Honorabili Johĩ Clerke Baroni Scaccar. in Scotia tab. d.d. Wˢ.
Stukeley._
_Stukeley f.a.f 1723_]
[Illustration: 41·2ᵈ. _At Bathe._
_Stukeley delin._ _I. Harris fecit._]
[Sidenote: _The_ +Weddings+. Br. _Temple_.]
[Sidenote: +Marsbury+ _field_.]
[Sidenote: +Bowditch+ _camp_.]
From the Bath I went to visit the famous Celtic temple called the
Weddings, in company with John Strachey, esq; who lives near there,
a person well versed in natural history and antiquities, and fellow
of the Royal Society. I shall describe this memorable curiosity upon
another occasion. In the way hither, about Twyfordton, I found a fallow
field with but little quantity of earth upon the rock: this was as
full of fossil shells as possible, let into a softish stone, which had
preserved their very natural colour of blue and white as perfectly as
at first. Near Stanton Drue, in a _trivium_, is an old elm-tree made
infamous for the bloody trophies of judge Jeffrys’s barbarity, in the
duke of Monmouth’s rebellion; for all its broad-spreading arms were
covered over with heads and limbs of the unfortunate countrymen. In Chu
parish is Bowditch, a large camp on a hill trebly fortified, whence you
may behold the isles of Flatholm and Steepholm in the sea. I suppose
the word means the circular form of the place. Here is a petrifying
spring. This country abounds with coal-pits: the slates that lie upon
it, and have not received their due quantity of sulphur, so as to make
perfect coal, are most curiously marked with impressions of plants,
capillary ones especially, and more particularly those of fern; all
which grew in exceeding plenty in this country, and gave their forms
to this soft matter at the Deluge. This is indeed a rock, and full
of springs, very bad road for travelling, short and steep valleys,
narrow lanes, intricate, dark and hard: so no wonder _harts-tongue_,
_liver-wort_, _maiden-hair_, _navel-wort_, and the like moist plants,
thrive here. The ground in these valleys is very rich: much wood
grows upon it; though in some roads you ride upon the superfice of a
rock lying flat in great slabs, as if artificially placed with good
joints. Many wood-plants grow about here, such as _wood-sorrel_,
_strawberries_, _tutsan_ or _park-leaves_, &c. The neatness of the
houses even of the poorer sort of people is remarkable, being generally
whited over, and with pretty little gardens, which in pure and unartful
nature is a necessary adjunct in the happiness of life.
[Sidenote: _Camps._]
There is a camp overlooks Stanton Drue, called Mizknoll; another at
Elm, two miles west from Frome: in 1691 a pot of Roman coin found
there, most of Constantine junior: it is upon the end of a precipice,
and severed from the rest of the hill by a _vallum_ on one side only:
south of it runs a rivulet. Masbury castle upon Mendip hills, half a
mile from the Foss, a mile north of Shipton-Mallet, of a round form,
150 paces diameter: the two entrances opposite: the environing ditch on
one end laps over with a semi-lunar turn, rendering the passage to it
oblique. Hereabouts are many camps, whose ditches are hewn out of the
solid rock: that above Bristol has four trenches, as many _vallums_,
and but one entrance: one would think it impregnable to any thing but
hunger. A camp cut out of the rock at Churchill with a single trench.
There is a cave equal to that of Ochey-hole at Dolebury. These are from
information of Mr. Strachey.
In this county of Somersetshire are three remarkable hills, that make
an exact triangle twelve mile each side, much talked of by the country
people; Camalet castle, Glassenbury torr, and Montacute. They have a
notion that king Arthur obtained from some saint, that no serpent or
venomous creature should ever be found in this compass, though frequent
all around it. I shall rehearse to your lordship what occurred to me
at the places. All this country, though to the eye very pleasant with
woods and prospects yet is very disagreeable to travel, for the reasons
I just mentioned.
[Sidenote: +Colomeæ.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. XLIII.]
Camalet is a noted place, situate on the highest ground in this county,
on the edge of Dorsetshire. The country people are ignorant of this
name, which has generally obtained among the learned: they call it
Cadbury castle, from the village of North-Cadbury, in which it is: this
caution is useful to those that go to enquire for it. Hereabouts rise
the rivers of Somersetshire, which run into the Severn sea westward;
and that in Dorset, which goes eastward, through Sturminster, into the
southern ocean. It is a noble fortification of the Romans, placed on
the north end of a ridge of hills separated from the rest by nature;
and for the most part solid rock, very steep and high: there are three
or four ditches quite round, sometimes more: the _area_ within is
twenty acres at least, rising in the middle: its figure is squarish,
but conforms to the shape of the hill. There is a higher angle of
ground within, ditched about, where they say was king Arthur’s palace:
it was probably the _prætorium_ and might be king Arthur’s too. who
lived in this place: the country people refer all stories to him. The
whole has been ploughed over since the memory of man, and much stone
has been taken from the surface, which has altered it. The rampart
is large and high, made chiefly of great stones covered with earth,
and perhaps, in some parts where it was necessary, laid with mortar:
here is only one entrance from the east. It is not unlikely there
were buildings erected in the later British times, being of so great
strength, and a perfect watch-tower, surveying the country round to an
incredible distance. The prospect is woody, and very pleasant; here and
there little hills, lofty and steep, peeping up with their naked heads:
you reach all the Mendip hills and Black-down in Devonshire. In this
camp they find many pebble-stones exactly round, half a peck at a time;
whereas there are none such in the country: they suppose them stones
to sling withal, fetched from the sea, or perhaps shot in cross-bows.
Roman coin in great plenty has been found here, and all the country
round: I saw vast numbers of Antoninus and Faustina, about that time
and after. The entrance here is guarded with six or seven ditches: on
the north side, in the fourth ditch, is a never-failing spring, called
King Arthur’s well: over it they have dug up square stones, door-jambs
with hinges, and say there are subterraneous vaults thereabouts.
Selden, in his notes on _Polyolbion_, writes it was full of ruins and
reliques of old buildings. At top they told me many pavements, and
arches have been dug up, hand-grindstones, and other domestic or camp
utensils. They say there is a road across the fields, that bears very
rank corn, called King Arthur’s Hunting-causeway.
[Sidenote: +Cadbury.+]
The church and tower of Cadbury is neat and small, built of stone.
In this place they call walnuts _Welsh-nuts_. To the southward, on
the opposite hill, corpses have been dug up: there was lately an
urn full of Roman money found at Wincaunton. A little above Sutton,
toward Beacon-Ash, in inclosing ground, half a peck of the same coin
was found; I saw some of Tetricus. Roman _pateras_, a knife, and
other antiquities, taken up thereabouts, sent to madam Thyns, now in
lord Winchelsea’s custody. Many are the British stories told of
Camalet, of the knights of king Arthur’s round table, of the solemn
justings and tournaments there, &c. It seems, when the castle for its
security was turned into a city, this was the _Colomeæ_ of Ravennas,
(as Mr. Baxter has corrected it) in the later times of the Romans;
unless Quincamel, not far off, can better put in its claim, to which
this might be the garrison. At Long-Leat, in my lord Weymouth’s
library, is a piece of lead weighing fifty pound, one foot nine inches
long, two inches thick, three and an half broad, found in the lord
Fitzharding’s grounds near Bruton in Somersetshire, and was discovered
by digging a hole to set a gate-post in: upon it this memorable
inscription, which I suppose was some trophy; communicated by lord
Winchelsea.
[Illustration: 43 _Prospect From Sᵗ. Roc’s hill Sept. 15. 1723._
_Prospect of Camalet Castle._ _15. Aug. 1723._
_Stukeley Del._]
[Illustration: 33 _Ichnography of the Abby of Glasenbury. 17. Aug.
1723._
_I. Vᵈʳ. Gucht Scul._ _Stukeley delin_]
┌───────────────────────┐
│ IMP DVOR AVG ANTONINI │
│ ET VERI ARMENIACORVM. │
└───────────────────────┘
Hence let us go, as in pilgrimage, to the famous Glassenbury; for it is
a very rough and disagreeable road, over rocks and the heads of rivers:
but that is much alleviated by the many natural curiosities such places
afford: several times I saw _gilded ivy_ grow in the hedges, as yellow
as gold; great plenty of _viorna_, _purging-thorn_, _prim-print_, and
the banks every where over-grown with _fox-gloves_. Kyneton village,
for half a mile together, is paved naturally with one smooth broad
rock, the whole breadth of the road; so that it looks like ice. Great
quarries of stone hereabouts, of the slab kind: all the uppermost
layers are incredibly full of sea-shells, and would make admirable
pannels to wainscot a _virtuoso’s_ summer-house, grotto, or the like,
and of any dimensions; not inferior, in true value, to those brought
from Italy, but too cheap. I frequently took notice that the course of
the vein of the stone quarry runs north-east and south-west.
[Sidenote: +Glasenbury Torr+]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXVII.]
Crossing the Foss road at Lyteford you enter upon a flat moorish
country, full of artificial cuts and drains, like the levels in
Lincolnshire. Not far before I came to Glassenbury, I observed a great
bank, crossing the road, which seemed to be a Roman road. I guess there
was a Roman road went from Bristol, through Axbridge, Bridgewater,
Taunton, parallel to the Foss, and nearer the ocean. I have been told,
between the two last places it is very fair, and paved with stone. With
much labour I climbed to the top of the Torr, hanging over the town of
Glassenbury. This hill, with that called Werial hill, is a long rib of
elevated ground in the midst of this vast level or isle of Avalon. I
observed, in its several breaks or gradations, a steepness westward.
Here upon the narrow crest of the Torr, which is much the highest, the
abbots built a church to St. Michael, of good square stone: the tower
is left, though ruinous; and it is an excellent sea-mark: it probably
cost more to carry the stone up to this _apex_, than to erect the
building. There is a spring half way up it. It is certainly higher than
any ground within ten miles of the place. They say here is a passage
hence under ground to the abbey.
[Sidenote: +Glasenbury.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXIII.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXVII.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXIV.]
This great monastery in superstitious times held the first place for
fame and sanctity. Here the christian doctrine first found admittance
in Britain, or early tradition has amused us: it is not unlikely the
fact may be true, though the persons and circumstances invented:
however, it is not to be doubted but king Ina built their church; as
one of the most ancient, so the most wealthy and magnificent, loaded
with revenues by the Saxon kings, and perhaps the British before
them. Truly the abbot lived in no less state than the royal donors: no
wonder, when his revenue was equivalent to 40,000l. per ann. he could
from the Torr see a vast tract of this rich land his own demesnes,
and seven parks well stored with deer belonging to the monastery.
It is walled round and embattled like a town, a mile in compass: as
yet there are magnificent ruins; but within a _lustrum_ of years, a
presbyterian tenant has made more barbarous havock there, than has
been since the Dissolution; for every week a pillar, a buttress, a
window-jamb, or an angle of fine hewn stone, is sold to the best
bidder: whilst I was there they were excoriating St. Joseph’s chapel
for that purpose, and the squared stones were laid up by lots in the
abbot’s kitchen: the rest goes to paving yards and stalls for cattle,
or the highway. I observed frequent instances of the townsmen being
generally afraid to make such purchase, as thinking an unlucky fate
attends the family where these materials are used; and they told me
many stories and particular instances of it: others, that are but half
religious, will venture to build stables and out-houses therewith, but
by no means any part of the dwelling-house. The abbot’s lodging was a
fine stone building, but could not content the tenant just mentioned,
who pulled it down two or three years ago, and built a new house out of
it; aukwardly setting up the arms and cognisances of the great Saxon
kings and princes, founders, and of the abbots, over his own doors and
windows: my friend Mr. Strachey had taken a drawing of it very luckily
just before, which I have put in its proper place, plate 37. Nothing
is reserved intire but the kitchen, a judicious piece of architecture:
it is formed from an octagon included in a square; four fire-places
fill the four angles, having chimneys over them: in the flat part of
the roof, between these, rises the arched octagonal pyramid, crowned
with a double lantern, one within another: there are eight curved ribs
within, which support this vault, and eight funnels for letting out
the steam through windows; within which, in a lesser pyramid, hung the
bell to call the poor people to the adjacent almery, whose ruins are
on the north side of the kitchen: the stones of the pyramid are all
cut slaunting with the same bevil to throw off the rain. They have a
report in the town, that king Henry VIII. quarrelling with the abbot,
threatened to fire his kitchen: to which he returned answer, That he
would build such a one as all the timber in his forest should not burn.
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXVI.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXV.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXVII.]
The church was large and magnificent: the walls of the choir are
standing, twenty-five fathom long, twelve broad: there is one jamb
at the east end of the high altar left: hereabouts were buried king
Edgar, and many of the Saxon kings, whose noble ashes ought to have
protected the whole: two pillars of the great middle tower are left
next the choir: on the north side is St. Mary’s chapel, as they told
me; the roof beat down by violence, and a sorry wooden one in its
place, thatched with stubble to make it serve as a stable: the manger
lies upon the altar and niche where they put the holy water. St.
Edgar’s chapel is opposite to it; not much left of it, beside the
foundations: the north and south transepts are quite demolished. They
say king Arthur was buried under the great tower. A small part of the
south side wall of the body of the church remains, which made one side
of the cloysters; and the arch at the west end, leading to the chapel
of Joseph of Arimathea, the patron and asserted founder of the whole.
This they say was the first christian church in Britain. The present
work is about the third building upon the same spot: it is forty-four
paces long, thirty-six wide without: it is so intire, that we could
well enough draw the whole structure, as in plate 35. the roof
is chiefly wanting: two little turrets are at the corners of the west
end, and two more at the interval of four windows from thence, which
seem to indicate the space of ground the first chapel was built on: the
rest between it and the church was a sort of anti-chapel. Underneath
was a vault now full of water, the floor of the chapel being beaten
down into it: it was wrought with great stones. Here was a capacious
receptacle of the dead: they have taken up many leaden coffins, and
melted them into cisterns. Hence is the subterraneous arched passage
to the Torr, according to their notion. The roof of the chapel was
finely arched with rib-work of stone: the sides of the walls are full
of small pillars of Sussex marble, as likewise the whole church; which
was a little way of ornamenting in those days: they are mostly beaten
down: between them the walls are painted with pictures of saints, as
still easily seen. All the walls are overgrown with ivy, which is the
only thing here in a flourishing condition; everything else presenting
a most melancholy, though venerable aspect. On the south side the
cloysters was the great hall. The town’s people bought the stone of
the vaults underneath to build a sorry market-house, contributing
to the ruin of the sacred fabric, and to their own: what they durst
not have done singly, they perpetrated as a body, hoping vengeance
would slip between so many: nor did they discern the benefit accruing
to the town from the great concourse of strangers purposely to see
this abbey, which is now the greatest trade of it, as formerly its
only support; for it is in a most miserable decaying condition, as
wholly cut off from the great revenues spent among them. There are
many other foundations of the buildings left in the great _area_, but
in the present hands will soon be rooted up, and the very footsteps
of them effaced, which so many ages had been erecting. Though I am
no encourager of superstitious foppery, yet I think, out of that
vast estate, somewhat might have been left, if only to preserve old
monuments for the benefit of our history. The abbot’s hall I have been
told was curiously wainscoted with oak, and painted with coats of arms
in every pannel. The mortar of these buildings is very good, and great
rocks of the roof of the church lie upon the ground, consisting chiefly
of rubble stone untouched by the fanatical destroyers, who work on the
hewn stone of the outside, till a whole wall falls when undermined a
little. Throughout the town are the tattered remains of doors, windows,
bases, capitals of pillars, &c. brought from the abbey, and put into
every poor cottage.
[Illustration: 37 _The Prospect of_ Glasenbury Abby.
A. _Sᵗ. Josephs chappel._ B. _The Abby Church._ C. _Sᵗ. Marys
chappel._ D. _Edgars chappel._ E. _The high Alter._ F. _The
Cloysters._ G. _The Hall._ H. _The Abbots kitchin._ I. _The Abbots
Lodging._
_Stukeley del._]
[Illustration: 34 _The Orthography Section & Groundplot of the Abbot of
Glasenburys Kitchin._ _Aug. 17. 1723._
_Celeberrimo Viro Humfredo Wanleio d.d. W. Stukeley._]
[Illustration: 36 _A Prospect of the Ruins of_ Glasenbury Abby _Aug.
17. 1723_.
_Stukeley del_: _E. Kirkall scul_:
A. _The Abbots Kitchin._ B. _His Lodgings._ C. _Sᵗ. Iosephs
Chappel._ D. _The Town Church._ E. _the Abby Church._ F. _the
Tower._ G. _Sᵗ. Marys Chappel._ H. _Edgars Chappel._ I. _the
Choir._ K. _the Cloysters._ L. _the Hall._ M. _the Monks Lodgings._
N. _the Almery._]
[Illustration: 35 _The Inside Section of Sᵗ. Joseph of Arimathea’s
Chapel at Glasenbury._
_Tho. Tanner D.D. Sacra Tabula._
_G. Vᵈᵉʳ. Gucht. Scul._ _Stukeley delin._]
In the town are two churches; the upper a handsome fabric, with a fine
tower of good design, adorned with figures in niches: at the east end
of the church-yard is a curious old tomb inscribed with ancient English
letters, but so worn with trampling on, that I could make little out
of it, except the name of the interred Alleyn. The George inn is an
old stone building, called the Abbot’s inn, where chiefly the pilgrims
were lodged that came strolling hither, and idling their time away for
sanctity: stone and timber are liberally bestowed on it: a coat of arms
of the kings of England, supported by a lion and a bull, over the gate,
and many crosses: the bed I lay in was of large timber, with great
embossed gilt pannels, and seemed to have been the abbot’s.
When I left this place, I passed through a great gate built across
the road under the abbey wall, with a lesser portal by the side of
it; which I suppose was some boundary of the abbey-lands, and part of
their extravagance; for the abbot’s revenues being inconsumable in
their way of life, they prodigally threw it away in building, as one
method of perpetuating their name: another they had which was very
useful, the making great and high causeways, along this moory country,
for facilitating travelling and commerce; the remains of which I saw
here and there, and wished they had been in better repair. I passed by
the side of Werial hill, where grew the famous hawthorn that blossomed
at Christmas; I suppose, an early blooming white-thorn: but that it
so strictly observed Christmas day to an hour, nay a minute, as they
here assert, I believe no more than the vulgar derivation of the hill,
with more of the dregs of monkery. Somerton is an old town, that gives
name to the whole county, once the royal seat of the West-Saxon kings:
the steeple is octangular: probably it was a Roman town. I saw a camp
upon a great copped high hill on the right hand, as I travelled. At
Ilchester town end I fell into the Foss road again.
[Sidenote: +Ischalis.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. LXXII.]