This Plain Country Continues In Length From Winchester To Salisbury
(Twenty-Five Miles), From Thence To Dorchester (Twenty-Two Miles),
Thence To Weymouth (Six Miles); So That They Lie Near Fifty Miles
In Length And Breadth; They Reach Also In Some Places Thirty-Five
To Forty Miles.
They who would make any practicable guess at the
number of sheep usually fed on these Downs may take
It from a
calculation made, as I was told, at Dorchester, that there were six
hundred thousand sheep fed within six miles of that town, measuring
every way round and the town in the centre.
As we passed this plain country, we saw a great many old camps, as
well Roman as British, and several remains of the ancient
inhabitants of this kingdom, and of their wars, battles,
entrenchments, encampments, buildings, and other fortifications,
which are indeed very agreeable to a traveller that has read
anything of the history of the country. Old Sarum is as remarkable
as any of these, where there is a double entrenchment, with a deep
graff or ditch to either of them; the area about one hundred yards
in diameter, taking in the whole crown of the hill, and thereby
rendering the ascent very difficult. Near this there is one farm-
house, which is all the remains I could see of any town in or near
the place (for the encampment has no resemblance of a town), and
yet this is called the borough of Old Sarum, and sends two members
to Parliament.
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