Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/325

Rh 2em



specimens of ancient masonry we meet with in this country, of a date anterior to the thirteenth century, exhibit such a diversity of construction as to lead to the inquiry, whether there are any decided marks of discrimination which we may apply so as to affix to each its proper epoch and character, whether as belonging to the ancient British, the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon, or Anglo-Norman era.

It is doubtful whether we have any remains of early masonry to evince that, prior to the Roman invasion, the use of lime in a calcined state mixed with water and sand, or any other substance, so as to form an adhesive cement by which stone could be joined to stone, was known to the ancient inhabitants of this island. On the contrary, in most of the existing remains of ancient British masonry, or those which may be presumed to be such; in the stone walls with which some of the fortified posts of the Britons are surrounded, or nearly so; in the vestiges of their huts or dwellings, which are still in some places apparent; in their structures of a sepulchral class formed of large and irregular-shaped stones, such as the cromlechs, where one huge flat but irregular-shaped stone is raised in an inclining or horizontal position on the points or edges of other large and