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A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE destructive effect upon these ancient monuments, but this is insignificant compared with the havoc wrought by the hand of man, as is proved in a general way by the fact that those monuments which are in the midst of wild moors are usually in a more perfect state than those which are nearer the haunts of man. Burial cairns have served as convenient quarries for materials for the construction of field walls and the repair of roads, while the large stones of cists and circles have been removed for gateposts. Many examples of these acts of ' vandalism ' could be given, but the following will suffice. Major Rooke, writing in 1783, had occasion to deplore that of the circles on Abney and the adjacent moors described by Dr. Pegge in 1761, the largest had been wholly and a smaller one partly, robbed of their stones in the interval. Thirty years ago, one of the Abney moor circles, consisting of a rampart surmounted with ten standing stones and enclosing a small mound, was in a state of fair preservation, but in 1 877, Mr. Rooke Pennington reported that it had been ' destroyed to build a wall.' When six years later the present writer visited the spot, two stones alone remained to mark the site, while of the other circles on these moors only the traces of one were discernable. There is, however, reason to think that the devastation wrought against these Peakland monuments in recent times, is really small compared with that which followed the numerous enclosures of wastes a century or more ago. This being the experience in the wilder parts, the sparseness of these remains in the more fertile lowlands is not surprising, for assuming that they were once equally strewn over the county, few could have survived the long and thorough cultivation to which these have been subjected. A brief history of archaeological research and discovery in this county will appropriately follow these introductory remarks. The two writers who first made a special study of its pre-historic antiquities and brought them into general notice were Major Hayman Rooke, F.R.S., and the Rev. Samuel Pegge, LL.D. The former resided at Mansfield Woodhouse, where he died in 1806 at the age of eighty- four, after devoting many years to the antiquities and natural history of this and the neighbouring county of Nottingham. The latter was the celebrated rector of Whittington near Chesterfield, who died at the ripe age of ninety-two in 1796. The contributions of these pioneer anti- quaries, which come within the scope of our subject, were mostly published in Archceologla (vols. vi.-x., xii.). Although their speculations are of little interest to us, except as reflecting the views of the old school of antiquaries, their descriptions are, as a rule, precise and valuable. Dr. Pegge's paper on the ' Lows and Barrows of Derbyshire,' for instance, is singularly replete with information, considering how few of these barrows had been investigated at that time. Contemporary with Rooke and Pegge was Mr. John Wilson of Broomhead Hall near Penistone (died 1783), who drew up in manuscript form many observations and discoveries of an antiquarian nature in York- shire and Derbyshire. Such portions as relate to early man in the latter 1 60