From James Douglas, Nenia Britannica, 1793: ‘The only relic found at the bottom, and which Colonel Drax shewed me, was a thin slip of oak wood; by burning the end of it in a wax taper, we proved it not to be whalebone, which had been so reported; the smell of the vegetable substance soon convinced the Colonel of his mistake. He had a fancy that this hill had been raised over a Druid oak, and he thought the remains of it were discovered in the excavation: there was, however, no reason for considering it to have been a place of sepulchre by the digging into it.’

From Henry Browne, An Illustration of Stonehenge and Avebury, 1823: ‘This elderly gentleman, when a youth, was at Silbury Hill on the occasion of some miners sinking a large hole or well down the centre of it to the ground on which it began to be raised. In doing so the found a piece of timber continued down the whole way, evidently for a centre from whence to take the measurement of the hill in working it upwards.’

From the Reverend Duke, The Druidical Temples of Wiltshire, 1846: ‘A slip of oak is produced, which, I have no doubt, was the ultimate remains of an upright log, placed as a centre, around which this aspiring mound was raised.’