"It is a curious fact that lunatics never will believe that they are insane." *
The lunatic here was the Rev. Edward Duke who was baptised on 24 September 1779 at Hungerford and went to Magdalene Hall, Oxford, where he gained his MA in 1807. Duke was also a magistrate and a member of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. He died on the 11 October 1895 - one hundred and ten years ago and six years after publishing his theory that the Druids had built a giant planetarium in the land with temples representing all the planets known to ancient man in orbit around the earth.
In <b>The Druidical Temples Of The County Of Wilts</b> Duke wrote, "...that our ingenious ancestors portrayed on the Wiltshire Downs, a Planetarium or stationary Orrery, if this anachronism may be allowed me, located on a meridianal line, extending north and south, the length of sixteen miles; that the planetary temples thus located, seven in number, will if put into motion, be supposed to revolve around Silbury Hill as the centre of this grand astronomical scheme; that thus Saturn, the extreme planet to the south, would in his orbit describe a circle with a diameter of thirty-two miles; that four of these planetary temples were constructed of stone, those of Venus, the Sun, the Moon, and Saturn; and the remaining three of earth, those of Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter, resembling the "Hill Altars" of Holy Scripture; that the Moon is represented as a satellite of the Sun, and, passing round in an epicycle, is thus supposed to make her monthly revolution, while the Sun himself pursues his annual course in the first and nearest concentric orbit, and is thus successively surrounded by those also of the planets, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; that these planetary temples were all located at due distances from each other; that the relative proportions of those distances correspond with those of the present received system; and that, in three instances, the sites of these temples bear in their names at this day plain and indubitable record of their primitive dedication." **
Phew... mad as a hatter of course but perhaps interesting and entertaining reading for the weekend.
* <b>The Wiltshire Trust<b> of 1846 reviewing <b>The Druidical Temples Of The County Of Wilts</b>
