Thursday, May 10, 2018

5/9 Avebury Area

Avebury is a town and a farm, but it really is an area that is part of a World Heritage site because of all the Neolithic activity in the area.  I saw and took photos only of a small part.  There are burial mounds and  pits and all kinds of stone monuments in the area.  My bed and breakfast (B&B) was less than a mile from the stone circle and only a few hundred feet from Silbery Hill.  And all of this is only maybe a dozen miles from Stonehenge.  This was obviously a very busy gathering place 6,000 to 2,000 years ago!

Notice that Averbury circle is larger than the one at Stonehenge and has two rings inside of it.  It it also about 800 years older! 


Most of the circle was owned by a single farmer who bought up as much land as he could and turned it over eventually to the National Trust.  Newer homes were removed and no more plowing was done to prevent damage to anything in the ground. 
 

I parked at the car park and walked in. The 16-day English Heritage pass I bought at Stonehenge, got me in free here as well. 


This is the ditch surrounding the stone circle.  Interestingly, most defensive ditches have the highest part inside the circle, but this one has the highest part outside of the circle, so it was likely NOT defensive.  Some archeologists have suggested it was a place to watch the festivities, or whatever happened here.  

The younger Stonehenge has its stones dressed, meaning they were shaped.  These pretty much are just as they came out of the ground.  Also, these were Sarsen, and did not have to come as far as the bluestones at Stonehenge.  There is a hilltop about a mile away where the stones could have come from. 

The various barns and farm buildings have been turned into museums, gift shops, cafes, etc. 

The barn shown in the previous photo is at least 300 years old.  Check out the trees used as structure. 

And they think the main support beams are even older.  Look at this one carefully!  It may have come from a previous barn that stood here.  

Unfortunately, in the 1700s and 1800s, many of the sarsen stones from the Avery circle were removed and broken up into building materials.  The stones in this building may have come from the ancient stones.  




This is the stone circle itself.  Part of it originally went directly through this farm. 


A 200 year old stone church that has stone that suspiciously matches the sarsen in the circle. 


The cement markers mark the original place where a stone stood. 

 There are several white horses carved into the chalk in Wiltshire, where Avebury is located. The two near here are not ancient, but they were modeled after some ancient ones. Here is one I found and took a photo of.  Check this out for more information:  https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/calstone-and-cherhill-downs/features/cherhill-white-horse

Silbury Hill is certainly ancient, but it hard to get close to.  There is a small parking lot, but the rest is fenced in.  it is the largest man-made hill in Europe and is around 4,000 years old.  No one knows why it was built, as no burials have ever been found in it.      http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/silbury-hill/ 
 


 This is the medium-sized town of Marlborough where I went to have dinner a couple of nights.  It is amazingly typical on British towns. 



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