STRAY NOTES, PREHISTORIC, SAXON, AND NORMAN. 221
words, which I quote from his family "Memoirs," as published by
the Surtees Society :
[Vol. III., p. 163.] ''October 8, 1725. At the Alate Temple, Navestock
Common.
" August 29, 1749. We went by Weald to Navestock Common to view the
Alate Temple of the Druids, which I had seen twenty-five years ago. 'Tis on very
elevated ground ; we may see St. Paul's Church there, and, down the river, an
open heath oregrown with fern, erica, and the like plants on a dry, gravelly
soil : great woods of oak all around, being on the edge of Epping Forest. The
Temple is formed by mounds of earth, a ditch, the earth whereof is thrown out both
ways. What I should call the meridian line of it is south-east, regarding the
Thames. 'Tis ingeniously designed, the right wing as in action, the whole as it
were in perspective. Many names of places hereabouts seemingly retaining to
British. Navestock is the old oak by the temple, graph, alatus. Kelvedon hardly1
the abode of the Druid that kept the place, whose name, probably, was Kelvis ;
Kelweis, 2 a town upon the River Avon, not far from Abury, Wilts. Doddinghurst.
Hurst, a town in Wilts, near Crokewood,3 not far from Devizes ; Hurst, near Isle
of Ely, where the old Britons long remained after the Saxons had driven 'em out
elsewhere.
" Mr. Lethulier showed me the many cast celts of brass found near here lately 4
most of them of the recipient kind, and with rings to hang 'em by. One of the
received, but the sides remarkably bent in order to hold the staff the better : 'tis
broke, but the sides so much broader than ordinary and so bent, strongly confirm
my notion of the use of those celebrated instruments, that the Druids used them
to cut down the mistletoe with at their winter sacrifice.
" I observe that our temple is upon the division dike of Chalford5 and Ongar.
They that laid out these hundreds took the opportunity of this antiquity on a
wide and open common, to draw their ditch near it as a remarkable and known
thing.
" Mr. Lethulier showed me an infinite collection of all kinds of curiosities.
. . The road here is the great Roman road to Camulodunum, or
Colchester.
" The Druids studiously formed the two wings in different attitudes on purpose
to hide the appearance from vulgar eyes ; to render it, as it really was, symbolical
and mystical ; and to represent it as in action, being, as Moses expresses it, the
Spirit of God which moved on the face of the waters, Hence the Egyptians
place this sacred character on their canopuses ; hence the alate temple on the banks
of the Humber ; and this, though at a distance, regards the Thames' mouth, its
meridian line (as I call it) being south-east. Thus the greatest star in the heavens,
Callopus, at the bottom of Argo Navis, just skims the horizon, as brooding on the
face of the ocean. Plutarch thinks Osiris' soul is in that star, which intimates
the building, or rather making, such temples at the sepulchres of great kings as
protectors of their ashes, and conductors of souls of heroes to their beatifyed
estate, which custom was in time occasion of their deification. The Orientals
have a wonderful notion concerning this star of Callopus, and worshipped it.
[1 hard by.— S.C.H.]
2 Probably Kellaway's, near Chippenham.
3 Crockwood, east of Potterne.
4 Not mentioned among bronze hoards, by Mr. Evans, in his work on "Bronze Implements
of Great Britain."
[5 Chafford.—S.C.H.]