Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.9372
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    Plan of the Stone Circles of Avebury

    Date
    8 July 1663
    Creator
    John Aubrey (1628 - 1697, British) , Antiquary
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (drawing): 272mm
    width (drawing): 386mm
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    This pencil drawing by John Aubrey depicts the stone circles of Avebury. It is a map study of the major standing stones at Avebury with contemporary roads, field boundaries and houses. A river or ditch is shown, [intended as the river Kennet?] to the west of the main village with the church of Avebury St James. Inscribed left: “AVEBURY” in pencil and with an inscription in ink above [by Henry Oldenburg]: “By Mr Awbrey july 8 1663”. The map shows paired stones at each entrance to the site and a detail of a four-stoned cove features upper left above the main title inscription.

    This map, Aubrey’s “plaine-table” study, is discussed in detail in the book ‘Avebury reconsidered: from the 1660s to the 1990s’, by Peter J Ucko et al (London, Unwin Hyman, 1991), pp.119-129 [where it is styled “Plan C”].

    This image contrasts with another image Aubrey made of Avebury, printed in his ‘Monumenta Britannica’ (known as plan A). The image here is more complex than plan A and depicts a series of field boundaries as well as houses along the town cross-street. This drawing and the account of the ancient stone circles of Avebury is an example of the antiquarian interests of the early Fellows of the Royal Society.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 8 July 1663, 'Dr. Charleton presented the society with the plan of the stone antiquity at Avebury, near Marlborough, in Wiltshire; suggesting, that it was worth the while to dig there under a certain triangular stone, where he conceived would be found a monument of some Danish king. Col. Long and Mr. Aubrey were desired to make farther inquiry into it' (Birch 1:272).

    This was also described by Robert Hooke in an undated letter to Robert Boyle: 'Dr Charleton gave a description of Aubery in Wiltshire, which seems indeed by his relation a very strange piece of antiquity, and more admirable than Stoneheng, which he hopes to make an argument to confirm his hypothesis about that Chorea Gigantum' (The Works of the Honorable Robert Boyle... to which is Prefixed the Life of the Author, ed. and life by Thomas Birch, 5 vols (London, 1744), V, 532).
    Associated place
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