yChapter Nine: The Marmalade Man
Avebury village was small and picturesque in parts; its short high-street, half of which lay within the circle, was pretty enough, with stone cottages lining one side opposite the church; as one entered the earth embankments one passed the village shop, and here grander houses appeared on the other side of the road, behind which, secluded in trees, lay the Manor House – but as one reached the centre of the circle, passing the cross-roads on which stood the Red Lion, then followed the road east past more houses on each side of the narrow road, the village soon petered out in a few huddles of small cottages, a mess of wooden shacks, allotments, pig sties, chicken pens and overgrown copses of trees. Choked with refuse and abandoned farm machinery.
The small car park and forecourt of the pub was filled with an assortment of vehicles; the strange half-tank half-car that had stopped at the garage earlier, and a number of large trucks bearing the insignia ‘E H Bradley; building works, Swindon’ on their sides. Around these vehicles, strewn on the cobbles of the forecourt and sat upon muddy tyre tracks, were a number of crates and sacks, spades, ropes.
‘Hmm. Hardly the English idyll I remember’ grumbled Lewis.
‘I’m sure it’s fine inside, Jack,’ Owen said, ‘This will all be something to do with the excavations.’ He explained, waving his hand at the mess before them. Nevertheless, he felt a strong urge to draw their attention elsewhere to lighten his friend’s mood. ‘It’s not quite lunchtime, so let’s walk some of the circle.’ He suggested.
The men had approached Avebury from the west, the direction of Beckhampton and had entered the circle along the high street – so now Barfield led them back a few hundred yards and turned south off the street through a wooden gate to where the banks and ditch of the great circle could be seen, curving far out of sight.
The remains of the circle itself still impressed: it would have taken one at least half an hour to have walked the circumference of the ditch with its towering external bank that marked the bounds of the monument. Even though in places it was choked with trees and scrubby bushes the great earthwork remained imposing, despite having been weathered by over four thousand years of Wiltshire winters.
The three friends strolled along the south-western quarter of the circle, which was divided into four segments by the roads that entered the village from each of the cardinal points, near enough, roads that respected the original entrances of the circle. The grass in the south-western quarter was being kept low by the numerous sheep that roamed here. Along this entire stretch there lay just one standing stone, though mounds along the inner edge of the ditch suggested where more lay beneath the surface, as if sleeping under grassy blankets.
The single remaining stone was larger than any of the men there present, gnarled, unworked and slightly twisted like the trunk of a storm blasted tree; and each took time to touch its rough, lichen-covered skin, warm to the touch at first, but soon yielding to a deep coolness, the heart of the stone yet to be warmed by the growing sun.
‘I don’t know why but I had imagined the stones like those at Stonehenge – taller and dressed; this is far more earthy, somehow, more wild…’ Lewis said.
‘I thought you had seen them before?’ remarked Tolkien.
‘No – we made a dash for the Red Lion in the rain and when we had emerged again it was quite dark.’
‘Imagine how it would have looked when all the stones were standing…’ Barfield said.
Lewis nodded. ‘Where did the rest go?’
‘Some were buried,’ Barfield said, gesturing at the humps dotted about the inner edge of the ditch, ‘others destroyed – heated by fires built around them and then dowsed in cold water so they broke apart.’ Barfield added.
‘Damn puritans!’ Lewis said, winking at Tolkien.
‘Were they pulled down by religious zealots or by farmers wanting decent material for their dry-stone walls, I wonder?’ Tolkien mused. He ran his hand over the stone; it seemed so alone now that its fellows were gone or lying nearby under the turf. An image crossed his mind of the sleeping stones waking and casting off their green covers on some magical future dawn, rough faces creased against the light of the rising sun on the Day of Judgement. Would the rocks and stones themselves be held accountable for what ancient man had done in ignorance here at their feet, or would they shout hosanna and be exalted when the crooked was made straight and the rough places plain?
‘This is one of the smaller of the remaining stones, however.’ Barfield said, gesturing them onwards.
Crossing the road into the south-eastern quarter the friends arrived before two leviathans of stone that had once marked the southern entrance.
‘I’ve lived in smaller houses than this!’ Lewis said, walking around the first of the stones. It stood twice as tall as a man, and he guessed ten men could stand side by side along its width. It was angular rather than rounded, set aslant so that no side, save the front and back faces, seemed level. Half way along its southern side lay a fissure with a ledge upon which a man could have easily sat.
‘My word! It simply dwarfs any other stone circle I’ve ever seen!’ Lewis exclaimed.
‘Careful which way you walk, Jack…’ Barfield scolded. ‘This is the Devil’s Chair: if you walk three times around it anti-clockwise the Devil appears.’
Lewis tried it, to no avail.
‘Maybe it has to be at midnight? These things usually are…’ Tolkien suggested, as Lewis finished his final circumnavigation.
‘Or at full moon, or midsummer.’ Lewis proposed, slightly breathless. ‘Is it full moon?’
‘No – just past the new, we may be treated to a beautiful crescent later.’ Tolkien said, secretly thinking how sad it was that most people had no idea what phase the Moon was at.
The three friends continued their stroll along the top of the ditch, which in this quarter was choked with bushes and trees – until they crossed into the north-east section, having passed a large number of mature trees on the outer bank, their roots entwined like thousands of serpents pouring down into the ditch below; as they continued they stopped at the few remaining stones until they had nearly completed the entire circuit of the monument. They had reached its northernmost point, where the road to Swindon cut through the banks, here another huge marker stone remained, on the opposite side of the circle from the Devil’s chair they had seen earlier. They were admiring this massive diamond of rock from across the road when at that moment a great boom sounded, accompanied by shouts, from beyond the stone; a boom that made Tolkien wince in memory.
‘What on earth was that?’ Lewis asked.
They crossed the road and passed the stone in its cove of trees, approaching a large group of individuals who they could now see assembled in a far section of the quadrant, who were gazing up at the tree-lined banks ahead. One of the men turned, and, spotting the three friends, hastened towards them.
The man was stocky, with creased friendly eyes and gingery brown hair, greying at the temples, swept over his forehead, but from his long pale overcoat and cap he was recognisable as the gentleman who they had seen at the tea-rooms earlier, re-fuelling the strangely military-looking car.
‘Afternoon gentlemen!’ he beamed, in a clipped, upper class voice, with only slight traces of a Scots accent. ‘A word of warning: we’re blasting the tree roots from the banks, and so if you wouldn’t mind keeping your distance from that part of the path, we wouldn’t want you to be caught in the falling debris.’ he smiled broadly. There was something of the schoolboy in his manner.
‘Is this to do with the excavation?’ Barfield asked.
‘Excavation? Yes, yes! Are you interested in archaeology?’ he asked, his eyes lit up with boyish enthusiasm.
‘Well, yes...’ Replied Barfield, but before he could qualify the statement the man had grinned and continued.
‘Alexander Keiller,’ he said, extending his hand, ‘I’m heading the excavations here; please let me show you what we’re up to!’
Introducing themselves to their excitable guide as they walked the three friends followed Keiller towards the assembled group, some smartly dressed, others clearly labourers in their shirtsleeves, dirty from their work, but before they reached the main group Keiller turned and beckoned to the three friends to join him at the edge of the ditch; here it had been excavated far below its present level – incredibly so – if the present ditch was the depths of two men, the excavated section, with its crisp straight sides in blazing white chalk, was another six men deep.
Young workmen in caps and waistcoats, their shirtsleeves rolled up, were digging the dirty chalk from the ditch; and shoring up the sides of the vast trench with wooden revetments noisily being hammered into place. In one place on the floor of the ditch a large bone stuck out of the soil, and beside it the unmistakeable smooth polished curve of a yellowed skull.
‘The original ditch, before time silted it up – was some forty feet in depth! And the bank, too, we suppose, much, much higher than it appears today. In short this feature would have been absolutely impenetrable!’
Lewis was shaking his head. ‘My word! That is truly astounding – one would never have guessed!’
‘No, quite! It shocked us, too – we kept on thinking we had reached the bottom, but no! This site is the most spectacular prehistoric circle in the world… and it’s my dream to restore it to its former glory… already we’ve located many of the stones that were buried, and we can erect them once more. The ditches and banks can be cleared of trees, which just leaves the…’ and he waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the edge of the village with its shanty building and animal pens.
Just then the group gathered to the south edged back from the ditch as a man further up the bank opposite shouted a warning, and ran back round along the top of the bank to a safe distance. A few seconds later another boom rang out and a fountain of earth and debris was thrown into the air, pattering down into the ditch and leaving a smoking crater from which the gnarled and blasted remnants of a tree root poked.
A cry rang out and a tall dark-haired young man clutched at his head then bent over to retrieve his glasses that had been knocked off by a piece of falling matter. A couple of those nearby rushed over to see if he was okay, and he nodded that he was fine.
Keiller whooped with delight. ‘Ha! Piggott!’ he shouted over ‘It’s good for you younger men to know how we felt in the trenches in 1916!’ He winked and laughed heartily.
Lewis rested his hand on Tolkien’s arm, seeing the latter pale at the explosion.
‘I’m okay, Jack.’ He said. Besides, he thought, I’m thinking of them, not me - and the bloody mess happening in Germany right now. What if these ditches they’re digging here are just practice? I’m thinking of my sons…
Keiller turned to the friends, gesturing them to follow him towards the main group. Piggott didn’t look impressed. He held out the piece of wood that had hit him towards Keiller– not a large piece but big enough for him to dab a handkerchief in his dark hair and examine it for any signs of blood.
‘You’ll live, my boy – I’d keep that as a souvenir! Look; it looks like they’ve found some more human remains in the ditch…’ he said, guiding Piggot away, but not before turning to the three friends.
‘I really must dash – very nice to have met you! Always nice to meet fellow enthusiasts… you’d be surprised at how many consider this the height of time-wasting and folly.’ Keiller beamed, before disappearing with the dazed and frowning Piggot towards the white chalk ditch.
‘Now there’s a man with vision.’ Remarked Lewis as they approached the car park of the Red Lion.
‘Let’s hope it’s the same one our ancestors had, if he’s hoping to rebuild what was here.’ Barfield said.
‘It’s easier to have a vision when you have the money to back it up.’ Tolkien said.
‘Yes, I suppose. Where do you think his money is coming from?’ Lewis asked.
‘It’s Keiller, Jack. As in Keiller’s Dundee marmalade,’ said Barfield.
‘Ah, yes! The marmalade millionaire!’ Lewis laughed. ‘I have a jar at the Kilns! Warnie will be most impressed!’
He suddenly stopped and laughed again. ‘He certainly seemed to be possessed with a real ‘zest’ for his subject…’ Lewis proposed, grinning.
Tolkien chuckled. ‘Who better, then, to preserve the past?’
Barfield shook his head. ‘Do you think he’ll want to rename this place Scone-henge?’
‘For that appalling pun, Owen, you’re buying the first round’ Lewis said, opening the door to the Red Lion.
Avebury village was small and picturesque in parts; its short high-street, half of which lay within the circle, was pretty enough, with stone cottages lining one side opposite the church; as one entered the earth embankments one passed the village shop, and here grander houses appeared on the other side of the road, behind which, secluded in trees, lay the Manor House – but as one reached the centre of the circle, passing the cross-roads on which stood the Red Lion, then followed the road east past more houses on each side of the narrow road, the village soon petered out in a few huddles of small cottages, a mess of wooden shacks, allotments, pig sties, chicken pens and overgrown copses of trees. Choked with refuse and abandoned farm machinery.
The small car park and forecourt of the pub was filled with an assortment of vehicles; the strange half-tank half-car that had stopped at the garage earlier, and a number of large trucks bearing the insignia ‘E H Bradley; building works, Swindon’ on their sides. Around these vehicles, strewn on the cobbles of the forecourt and sat upon muddy tyre tracks, were a number of crates and sacks, spades, ropes.
‘Hmm. Hardly the English idyll I remember’ grumbled Lewis.
‘I’m sure it’s fine inside, Jack,’ Owen said, ‘This will all be something to do with the excavations.’ He explained, waving his hand at the mess before them. Nevertheless, he felt a strong urge to draw their attention elsewhere to lighten his friend’s mood. ‘It’s not quite lunchtime, so let’s walk some of the circle.’ He suggested.
The men had approached Avebury from the west, the direction of Beckhampton and had entered the circle along the high street – so now Barfield led them back a few hundred yards and turned south off the street through a wooden gate to where the banks and ditch of the great circle could be seen, curving far out of sight.
The remains of the circle itself still impressed: it would have taken one at least half an hour to have walked the circumference of the ditch with its towering external bank that marked the bounds of the monument. Even though in places it was choked with trees and scrubby bushes the great earthwork remained imposing, despite having been weathered by over four thousand years of Wiltshire winters.
The three friends strolled along the south-western quarter of the circle, which was divided into four segments by the roads that entered the village from each of the cardinal points, near enough, roads that respected the original entrances of the circle. The grass in the south-western quarter was being kept low by the numerous sheep that roamed here. Along this entire stretch there lay just one standing stone, though mounds along the inner edge of the ditch suggested where more lay beneath the surface, as if sleeping under grassy blankets.
The single remaining stone was larger than any of the men there present, gnarled, unworked and slightly twisted like the trunk of a storm blasted tree; and each took time to touch its rough, lichen-covered skin, warm to the touch at first, but soon yielding to a deep coolness, the heart of the stone yet to be warmed by the growing sun.
‘I don’t know why but I had imagined the stones like those at Stonehenge – taller and dressed; this is far more earthy, somehow, more wild…’ Lewis said.
‘I thought you had seen them before?’ remarked Tolkien.
‘No – we made a dash for the Red Lion in the rain and when we had emerged again it was quite dark.’
‘Imagine how it would have looked when all the stones were standing…’ Barfield said.
Lewis nodded. ‘Where did the rest go?’
‘Some were buried,’ Barfield said, gesturing at the humps dotted about the inner edge of the ditch, ‘others destroyed – heated by fires built around them and then dowsed in cold water so they broke apart.’ Barfield added.
‘Damn puritans!’ Lewis said, winking at Tolkien.
‘Were they pulled down by religious zealots or by farmers wanting decent material for their dry-stone walls, I wonder?’ Tolkien mused. He ran his hand over the stone; it seemed so alone now that its fellows were gone or lying nearby under the turf. An image crossed his mind of the sleeping stones waking and casting off their green covers on some magical future dawn, rough faces creased against the light of the rising sun on the Day of Judgement. Would the rocks and stones themselves be held accountable for what ancient man had done in ignorance here at their feet, or would they shout hosanna and be exalted when the crooked was made straight and the rough places plain?
‘This is one of the smaller of the remaining stones, however.’ Barfield said, gesturing them onwards.
Crossing the road into the south-eastern quarter the friends arrived before two leviathans of stone that had once marked the southern entrance.
‘I’ve lived in smaller houses than this!’ Lewis said, walking around the first of the stones. It stood twice as tall as a man, and he guessed ten men could stand side by side along its width. It was angular rather than rounded, set aslant so that no side, save the front and back faces, seemed level. Half way along its southern side lay a fissure with a ledge upon which a man could have easily sat.
‘My word! It simply dwarfs any other stone circle I’ve ever seen!’ Lewis exclaimed.
‘Careful which way you walk, Jack…’ Barfield scolded. ‘This is the Devil’s Chair: if you walk three times around it anti-clockwise the Devil appears.’
Lewis tried it, to no avail.
‘Maybe it has to be at midnight? These things usually are…’ Tolkien suggested, as Lewis finished his final circumnavigation.
‘Or at full moon, or midsummer.’ Lewis proposed, slightly breathless. ‘Is it full moon?’
‘No – just past the new, we may be treated to a beautiful crescent later.’ Tolkien said, secretly thinking how sad it was that most people had no idea what phase the Moon was at.
The three friends continued their stroll along the top of the ditch, which in this quarter was choked with bushes and trees – until they crossed into the north-east section, having passed a large number of mature trees on the outer bank, their roots entwined like thousands of serpents pouring down into the ditch below; as they continued they stopped at the few remaining stones until they had nearly completed the entire circuit of the monument. They had reached its northernmost point, where the road to Swindon cut through the banks, here another huge marker stone remained, on the opposite side of the circle from the Devil’s chair they had seen earlier. They were admiring this massive diamond of rock from across the road when at that moment a great boom sounded, accompanied by shouts, from beyond the stone; a boom that made Tolkien wince in memory.
‘What on earth was that?’ Lewis asked.
They crossed the road and passed the stone in its cove of trees, approaching a large group of individuals who they could now see assembled in a far section of the quadrant, who were gazing up at the tree-lined banks ahead. One of the men turned, and, spotting the three friends, hastened towards them.
The man was stocky, with creased friendly eyes and gingery brown hair, greying at the temples, swept over his forehead, but from his long pale overcoat and cap he was recognisable as the gentleman who they had seen at the tea-rooms earlier, re-fuelling the strangely military-looking car.
‘Afternoon gentlemen!’ he beamed, in a clipped, upper class voice, with only slight traces of a Scots accent. ‘A word of warning: we’re blasting the tree roots from the banks, and so if you wouldn’t mind keeping your distance from that part of the path, we wouldn’t want you to be caught in the falling debris.’ he smiled broadly. There was something of the schoolboy in his manner.
‘Is this to do with the excavation?’ Barfield asked.
‘Excavation? Yes, yes! Are you interested in archaeology?’ he asked, his eyes lit up with boyish enthusiasm.
‘Well, yes...’ Replied Barfield, but before he could qualify the statement the man had grinned and continued.
‘Alexander Keiller,’ he said, extending his hand, ‘I’m heading the excavations here; please let me show you what we’re up to!’
Introducing themselves to their excitable guide as they walked the three friends followed Keiller towards the assembled group, some smartly dressed, others clearly labourers in their shirtsleeves, dirty from their work, but before they reached the main group Keiller turned and beckoned to the three friends to join him at the edge of the ditch; here it had been excavated far below its present level – incredibly so – if the present ditch was the depths of two men, the excavated section, with its crisp straight sides in blazing white chalk, was another six men deep.
Young workmen in caps and waistcoats, their shirtsleeves rolled up, were digging the dirty chalk from the ditch; and shoring up the sides of the vast trench with wooden revetments noisily being hammered into place. In one place on the floor of the ditch a large bone stuck out of the soil, and beside it the unmistakeable smooth polished curve of a yellowed skull.
‘The original ditch, before time silted it up – was some forty feet in depth! And the bank, too, we suppose, much, much higher than it appears today. In short this feature would have been absolutely impenetrable!’
Lewis was shaking his head. ‘My word! That is truly astounding – one would never have guessed!’
‘No, quite! It shocked us, too – we kept on thinking we had reached the bottom, but no! This site is the most spectacular prehistoric circle in the world… and it’s my dream to restore it to its former glory… already we’ve located many of the stones that were buried, and we can erect them once more. The ditches and banks can be cleared of trees, which just leaves the…’ and he waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the edge of the village with its shanty building and animal pens.
Just then the group gathered to the south edged back from the ditch as a man further up the bank opposite shouted a warning, and ran back round along the top of the bank to a safe distance. A few seconds later another boom rang out and a fountain of earth and debris was thrown into the air, pattering down into the ditch and leaving a smoking crater from which the gnarled and blasted remnants of a tree root poked.
A cry rang out and a tall dark-haired young man clutched at his head then bent over to retrieve his glasses that had been knocked off by a piece of falling matter. A couple of those nearby rushed over to see if he was okay, and he nodded that he was fine.
Keiller whooped with delight. ‘Ha! Piggott!’ he shouted over ‘It’s good for you younger men to know how we felt in the trenches in 1916!’ He winked and laughed heartily.
Lewis rested his hand on Tolkien’s arm, seeing the latter pale at the explosion.
‘I’m okay, Jack.’ He said. Besides, he thought, I’m thinking of them, not me - and the bloody mess happening in Germany right now. What if these ditches they’re digging here are just practice? I’m thinking of my sons…
Keiller turned to the friends, gesturing them to follow him towards the main group. Piggott didn’t look impressed. He held out the piece of wood that had hit him towards Keiller– not a large piece but big enough for him to dab a handkerchief in his dark hair and examine it for any signs of blood.
‘You’ll live, my boy – I’d keep that as a souvenir! Look; it looks like they’ve found some more human remains in the ditch…’ he said, guiding Piggot away, but not before turning to the three friends.
‘I really must dash – very nice to have met you! Always nice to meet fellow enthusiasts… you’d be surprised at how many consider this the height of time-wasting and folly.’ Keiller beamed, before disappearing with the dazed and frowning Piggot towards the white chalk ditch.
‘Now there’s a man with vision.’ Remarked Lewis as they approached the car park of the Red Lion.
‘Let’s hope it’s the same one our ancestors had, if he’s hoping to rebuild what was here.’ Barfield said.
‘It’s easier to have a vision when you have the money to back it up.’ Tolkien said.
‘Yes, I suppose. Where do you think his money is coming from?’ Lewis asked.
‘It’s Keiller, Jack. As in Keiller’s Dundee marmalade,’ said Barfield.
‘Ah, yes! The marmalade millionaire!’ Lewis laughed. ‘I have a jar at the Kilns! Warnie will be most impressed!’
He suddenly stopped and laughed again. ‘He certainly seemed to be possessed with a real ‘zest’ for his subject…’ Lewis proposed, grinning.
Tolkien chuckled. ‘Who better, then, to preserve the past?’
Barfield shook his head. ‘Do you think he’ll want to rename this place Scone-henge?’
‘For that appalling pun, Owen, you’re buying the first round’ Lewis said, opening the door to the Red Lion.