ored. This is not the
case, however, for the drastic restoration and partial rebuilding has
taken place at various times. The architecture is Norman and Early
English with Decorated windows in the chancel. The double two-storied
chamber at the side of the north transept consists of a priest's room
with a chapel below. The grounds of the Priory at the back of the
church are very lovely, the river forming the boundary on one side.
Amesbury town is pleasant and even picturesque, and the Avon in its
immediate neighbourhood may be described as beautiful. It is the
nearest place to Stonehenge in which accommodation may be had and is
also a good centre for the exploration of the Plain. The western road
runs in the direction of Stonehenge. On the crown of the hill to the
right, just before reaching West Amesbury, the so-called "Vespasian's
Camp" is seen. This is undoubtedly a prehistoric earthwork.

[Illustration: AMESBURY CHURCH.]

The description of Salisbury Plain in the _Ingoldsby Legends_ is
hardly accurate now:--

"Not a shrub nor a tree,
Not a bush can we see,
No hedges, no ditches, no gates, no styles,
Much less a house or a cottage for miles."

The usual accompaniment of the chalk--small "tufts" of foliage, that
become spinneys when close at hand, dot the surface of the great
plateau. Green, becoming yellow in the middle distance and toward the
horizon french-grey, are the prevailing hues of the Plain, but at
times when huge masses of cloud cast changing shadows on the short
sward beneath, the colours are kaleidoscopic in their bewildering
change. This immense table-land, from which all the chalk hills of
England take their eastward way, covers over three-fifths of Wiltshire
if we include that northern section usually called the Marlborough
Downs.

We now approach the mysterious Stones that have caused more conjecture
and wonder than any work of man in these islands or in Europe and of
which more would-be descriptive rubbish has been written in a
highfalutin strain than of any other memorial of the past. Such
phrases as "majestic temple of our far-off ancestors," "stupendous
conception of a dead civilization" and the like, can only bring about
a feeling of profound disappointment when Stonehenge is actually seen.
To all who experience such disappointment the writer would strongly
urge a second or third pilgrimage. Come to the Stones on a gloomy day
in late October or early March when the surface of the