A CROMLECH.--Passing lately through the village of Stoke-Bishop, a little beyond the western side of Durdham Down, I observed in an angle of a field immediately facing the road to Westbury a remarkably fine cromlech. The cap-stone, which appears to weigh about a couple of tons, rests against the last remaining support. Two former “supports” are lying prostrate by the side of it, as well as a third stone, which stood probably at the head of the monument, to indicate the burial-place of a chieftain.
Being a stranger in the neighbourhood, I inquired of the first passenger whom I met ( a labourer) what name the stone in question bore, and what was known of it. He replied, that it had not stood very long in its present position; that an old man in the village had assured him it had been brought into the field under very mysterious circumstances; in short, that it had been found there one morning! This is a repetition of an old-wives’ tale, as common in the East as in the West.
A second labourer, to whom I appealed for information upon the subject, said that nothing whatever was known about the stone; that some thought it very ancient indeed, and others that it was quite modern...
From ‘Notes and Queries,’ Dec 14th, 1867.