Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/326

308 irregular-shaped stones placed on edge, by means of which a rude chamber is formed; or the cistvaens constructed in like manner, whether found singly or in a continuous range of cells with a rude passage between each to connect them, the whole being composed of stones set on edge supporting other flat stones as a roof or covering and then coated over with earth: we find a total absence of any thing like mortar or cement. Even at Stonehenge, where the stones have been worked by the tool, where the trilithons exhibit the mortice and tenon, and could only have been upraised by mechanical force of considerable power, no traces of cement or mortar are visible. If there is any instance in which the existence of masonry cemented with lime occurs in this country before the Romans formed a settlement within it, such was an exception to the general rule.

On the summit of Worle Hill near Weston-super-Mare, Somersetshire, very extensive remains of ancient British masonry are visible. This hill forms a ridge about three miles in length, the western point projects like a promontory into the Bristol channel, and this point is cut off from the remainder of the hill by a series of sunk ditches, and two stone walls, one behind the other in parallel lines crossing the hill from north to south, and these walls are continued along the southern face of the summit of the hill in a westerly direction, and in other parts where the declivity of the face of this part of the hill is not formed by a precipitous rock, as it is in great measure on the north side.

It is very difficult to ascertain from the present appearance of this walling its original height or breadth: exposed to the storms of centuries acting on a bleak and elevated situation, and composed of loose stones without mortar, this rude masonry, if so it may be called, now presents the appearance of a ruinous rampart or bank of irregular-shaped stones; for the upper part of the wall having been displaced and thrown down, either by human violence, or by the natural force of the winds, or probably by both, the base is increased in width whilst the height is diminished, and the original masonry of the lower part of the wall is concealed by the stones thus ejected from the upper part, so that in one part the stones cover the base to the extent of sixty feet in breadth, and the bank now rises to the height of ten or fifteen feet externally, and to the height of five or six feet internally. Here and there