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The Sanctuary

Timber Circle

Miscellaneous

Stukeley on the Sanctuary:

"This Overton-hill, from time immemorial, the country people have a high notion of. It was (alas, it was!) a very few years ago, crown'd with a most beautiful temple of the Druids. They still call it the sanctuary... The loss of this work I did not lament alone; but all the neighbours (except the person that gain'd the little dirty profit) were heartily griev'd for it. It had a beauty that touch'd them far beyond those much greater circles in Abury town."

Perhaps the 'Sanctuary' was in fact a title made up by one of Stukeley's romantic antiquarian friends. He wasn't beyond a bit of exaggeration (and more than once took something Aubrey had said and pretended he'd thought of it first).

(quote from Aubrey Burl's 'Prehistoric Avebury', 2nd ed. p133)
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
19th November 2003ce
Edited 19th November 2003ce

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