197
ON SOME GREYWETHERS AT GRAYS
THURROCK, ESSEX.
By T. V. HOLMES, F.G.S., F.Anthrop.Inst., Vice-President, E.F.C.
(With Plate VIII.)
[Read November 28th, 1903.]
THE massive blocks of silicious sandstone known as Grey-
wethers or Sarsen stones, the remains of Tertiary beds
of more than one geological horizon, are found irregularly
scattered over various parts of the London Tertiary Basin, from
Berkshire and Wiltshire to Kent and Essex, Being usually
noticeable as masses of hard stone lying on the surface of rocks
of various ages from the Chalk upwards, in districts where there
is scarcely any building stone, it is not surprising to find that in
primitive times these blocks were used in the construction of rude
stone monuments like Kit's Coty, near Maidstone, Stonehenge
and Avebury. At a somewhat later period the name Sarsen
(Saracen) stones implies a popular belief in their diabolical, or at
least pagan, origin, use or distribution. For a thousand years
ago the words pagan, or heathen, and diabolical meant to the
mass of people much the same thing. Indeed in the well-known
lines of Burns, written towards the end of the eighteenth century,
we get the then popular identification of the devil with the
author of the best-known form of heathenism thus pithily
expressed:—
"The De'il cam fiddling thro' the toun,
And dane'd awa' wi' the Exciseman;
And ilka wife cries, Auld Mahoun,
I wish you luck of the prize, man!"
The name Greywethers, on the other hand, simply notes the
resemblance of these blocks to a flock of sheep, when they are
numerous and close together, and are seen from some distance.
Where they are abundant they have been prized as yielding
very hard and durable building-stone for structures of much
later date than Stonehenge or Avebury; Windsor Castle, for
instance, being largely built of the material they afford1. Thus
where numerous on the surface of a district, they tend to
disappear in proportion to the rale of progress in agriculture and
building there, and to remain undisturbed and undestroyed only
in wild uncultivated spots. As they are the sole remains of
1 Whitaker, Geology of the London Basin p. 390, Lond. 1872.