Avebury Matters

Barefoot at the Barge?

2012-01-19T11:42:00.013Z

Visitors to the Avebury World Heritage Site this year may be able to take advantage of the new arts venue at the Barge Inn, Honeystreet, Alton Barnes.

2012 will mark another milestone in the pub’s 200 year history. Honeystreet Ales are undertaking a major transformation of the old barn site, constructing a beautiful new visual and performing arts space, ‘The Barefoot’, right next to the Barge Inn. Designed by Mathewson Waters Architects and built by the award winning Green Oak Carpentry Company, construction starts in March. The £250,000 project, funded by Honeystreet Ales, will provide an exciting and inspirational new arts space.

The Barge Inn is situated alongside the Kennet and Avon Canal and within walking distance of the Anglo-Saxon church at Alton Barnes and the Norman church (with its ancient yew tree and other pagan associations) at Alton Priors. Avebury, Silbury and West Kennet Long Barrow are some 15 minutes drive away.

From an inner darkness to a thin mist…

2011-12-11T20:48:00.005Z

John Aubrey (1626-1697)

John Aubrey may have been described by his friends as, "Shiftless, roving and magotie-headed..." but he was among the first to examine and record Stonehenge, Avebury and other megalithic structures with any degree of accuracy. Writing about Avebury and Stonehenge Aubrey says, "I have brought (them) from an inner darkness to a thin mist."

There will be a lecture by Professor Michael Hunter FBA (author of John Aubrey and the World of Learning) and recently retired Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes, Wiltshire from 2:30pm on Saturday, 24 March 2012.

More here.

Landscape with Stones: Paintings and woodcuts by Nick Schlee

2011-11-28T16:36:00.001Z

An exhibition of oil paintings and woodcuts by British landscape artist Nick Schlee, focusing on Avebury and the Ridgeway. This new exhibition features some of Nick Schlee's most bold and vivid work portraying the ancient monument of Avebury and the nearby Ridgeway. 80 year old Nick says of the exhibition -

“More than half of the pictures in the exhibition feature those mysterious ancient stones that mean little to most of us, but must have meant a great deal to our forebears.

“Painting them, without being able to share the feelings they engendered for the people who erected them, is a problem. I can only describe their outside appearance. The spirit within is closed to me. It is as if I were recording the skin of a peach without any idea of its taste, its texture and delicious succulence.”

Venue: The Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes from Saturday, 14 January to Sunday, 2 September 2012.

More here.

Avebury: An illustrated talk

2011-11-11T08:53:00.004Z

On Monday, 14 November Dr Ros Cleal (or Dr Nicola Snashall) will be giving an illustrated talk on Avebury.

Organised by Newbury National Trust and held at St Bartholomew’s School from 7:30pm. Visitors £3. Telephone 01635 551034 for further information.

Prehistoric Wiltshire: An Illustrated Guide and talk by Bob Clarke

2011-11-04T18:18:00.008Z

Prehistoric Wiltshire: An Illustrated Guide by Bob Clarke. Foreword by Francis Pryor

Wiltshire contains some of the most important archaeological sites in Britain and its Prehistoric remains range from the splendour of Stonehenge to the awesome Avebury stone circle, with Silbury Hill and the Kennet Long Barrow being other noted megalithic monuments in the county.

Among these important sites are also found smaller, perhaps lesser known monuments to the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, including the cursus barrow cemetery at Fargo Plantation and Woodhenge.

Bob Clarke, author of numerous books on military archaeology and history, takes us on a tour of the prehistoric sites in this archaeologically rich county, using aerial photography and outstanding images, which accompany the informative text and diagrams.

Amberley Publishing. ISBN 9781848688773. Paperback. 128 pages. b&w and colour illustrations throughout.

Bob Clarke will also be talking about his book this Sunday (6 November) at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum. The talk will be followed by a book signing. Venue: Sunday 6 November, 2:30 - 4:30. Entrance fee £3 which includes tea/coffee and cakes.

Avebury - Graphic Novel

2011-08-06T11:15:00.002+01:00

Avebury - Graphic Novel: A short novel about the mysterious village of Avebury by Tom Manning.

This is a university project that was given out in order to induct us into the second year of the Illustration course. The theme of the project was that it should be based in the strange village of Avebury, north of Stonehenge, UK. Avebury is a very mysterious and ‘weird’ place filled with standing stones, deep trenches, rampaging druids and man made hills, theres no knowing what you might find there. WIth this in my mind I planned to introduce Avebury as an isolated, desolate area of wilderness, not unlike ‘the Zone’ in the 1979 Russian film ‘STALKER’.

Tom Manning.

To The Manor Reborn

2011-08-05T07:04:00.011+01:00

Avebury Manor

A BBC1 series will feature experts transforming the 16th century National Trust property, Avebury Manor, to some of its former glory. A spokeswoman for the BBC said, “The series will see a team of experts working together to bring Avebury Manor historic house back to life by transforming its rooms into different periods of history.”

The four, hour-long episodes, start in November and will be presented by Penelope Keith, star of the TV sitcom, To The Manor Born.

Summer Solstice 20 - 22 June 2011

2011-06-16T16:50:00.000+01:00

"The summer solstice observance at Avebury is expected to be very busy and there will be limited car parking as a result.

"From Monday 20 June until mid afternoon on Wednesday 22 June there will be a temporary campsite alongside the car park, opening at 9am on Monday 20 June and closing at 2pm on Wednesday 22 June. There will only be 93 tent spaces, allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. They are expected to be in high demand."

More here - http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-avebury/w-avebury-parking.htm

Avebury walks III: The West Kennet Avenue

2011-06-03T13:40:00.033+01:00

As with Walk I and Walk II below, if you’re arriving in Avebury by coach or car you’ll probably get off in the main car park and then walk along the path to Avebury High Street. Once there, turn right and walk to the south-east quadrant (opposite the Red Lion Pub). Enter the quadrant and walk as far south as you can within it, and then out of the quadrant and onto the road. Straight ahead of you, on the other side of the road out of Avebury towards Beckhampton, are the first stones that make up the West Kennet Avenue; this Avenue of standing stones once wound its way up to the Sanctuary from Avebury.

West Kennet Avenue looking towards the Sanctuary
Image credit Moss

The walk to the bottom of the Avenue and back will take less than an hour but, time permitting, at the south end there are two options you can take. Option one is to follow the signpost that points east towards Falkner’s Circle. This circle once consisted of twelve stones, although sadly only one stone now remains.

The single surviving stone of Falkner’s Circle © Alan S

The walk to Falkner’s Circle and back will add another 30 minutes or so to the walk from the bottom of the West Kennet Avenue. Option two however involves walking in the opposite direction from Falkener’s Circle up Waden Hill (the name Waden is derived from Woden) and will reward you with one of the most spectacular (and unexpected) views of Silbury that there is. From the top of Waden Hill look slightly to the left of Silbury – West Kennet Long barrow should just about be visible.

Silbury from the top of Waden Hill.
Image credit Moss

The walk from the bottom of the West Kennet Avenue to the top of Waden Hill and back again will take about 45 minuets. Walk IV in this series will suggest another walk, from the top of Waden Hill back to the main car park, rather than retracing your steps down the hill and along the West Kennet Avenue again.

See also Footprints through Avebury by Mike Pitts.

Landscapes of Thomas Hardy's Wessex

2011-04-03T15:37:00.002+01:00

“An exhibition of works by Rob Pountney, Dave Gunning and David Inshaw depicting the spectacular landscapes and ancient archaeological sites that feature in the novels and poems of Thomas Hardy.

“These contemporary artistic representations of Hardy’s fictionalized ‘Wessex’ are highly evocative, focusing attention on the physical and atmospheric qualities of the landscape, in much the same way that Hardy used prose to generate melodrama and set the scene in his work.” The exhibition is on show in the Wiltshire Heritage Museum's Art Gallery from Saturday, 28 May until Monday, 29 August 2011. More here -

http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/events/index.php?Action=2&thID=631&prev=1

Award to Wiltshire Heritage Museum

2011-03-30T13:02:00.006+01:00

Writing in the The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald yesterday, Lewis Cowen reports that, "The Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes has been awarded £58,200 to work on plans to create new Bronze Age galleries. The money has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund and now the museum will progress to the second stage of the HLF application process. The project will cost more than £200,000 and the museum, in Long Street, will have to contribute between £20,000 and £30,000. The new galleries will feature the rich finds from burials in the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site. The project will feature the unique gold and amber finds that define the Bronze Age Wessex culture and are currently locked away in the museum's vaults. The most famous of these are the 4,000-year-old finds from Bush Barrow, including a gold lozenge, belt hook, stone mace and richly decorated bronze dagger. The new displays will also include objects excavated from Upton Lovell and Manton as well as recent finds from Marden Henge, near Devizes."

More here -

http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/8938471.__58_000_bronze_age_windfall_for_Wiltshire_museum/ and here - http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/good-or-bad-news-for-wiltshire-heritage-museum/

Footprints through Avebury by Mike Pitts

2011-03-27T17:05:00.006+01:00

Footprints through Avebury was written and photographed by Mike Pitts. Mike, now editor of the British Archaeology Magazine, has excavated at both Stonehenge and Avebury, is the author of Hengeworld, and was, for five years, curator of the Alexander Keiller Museum at Avebury.

Footprints through Avebury is a little book (only 65 pages) but one packed full with a wealth of information, maps, contact details and a timeline for Avebury and its environs. The timeline begins 5,500 years ago with the Windmill Hill settlement, through to the erection of the first megaliths at Avebury 4,600 years ago, the Roman settlement at Silbury 1,700 years ago, the purchase of Avebury by the National Trust in 1900, and ending in the year 2000 when visitors to this World Heritage Site topped a quarter of a million. As the name of the booklet suggests, however, it’s not just an introduction to Avebury but a well thought-out walking guide to places of interest in and around the village. There are five guides (Mike calls them Excursions) most with maps or diagrams, all with excellent photos or illustrations. A useful note at the beginning of the longer walks is the distance in kilometres and miles; the distance from Avebury to Windmill Hill for example is five and a half kilometres or three and half miles.

With its easy-to-use guides and wealth of information Footprints through Avebury is a must-have for both the first-time and the seasoned visitor to the Avebury World Heritage Site.

Avebury walks II: The Winterbourne and Windmill Hill

2011-03-06T11:24:00.009Z

This walk has the advantage of offering two possibilities, both of which can be managed if you have three hours or so to spare, or in less than one hour if time is short. As with walk I below, if you’re arriving in Avebury by coach or car you’ll probably get off in the main car park and then walk along the path to Avebury High Street. Once there, turn left away from the Henge itself and walk down the High Street, past the church on your right and carry on down to the end of the road where you’ll take a sharp turn to the right and then to the left. The road has now become a footpath and, after ten minutes or so, will bring you to a little bridge which crosses over the Winterbourne stream. There’s a bench there where you can rest and, looking south across the meadows, be rewarded with one of the loveliest views of Silbury that there is.

Silbury from the Winterbourne

I’ve sat for long periods there just taking in the view and the sound of the Winterbourne when it’s in full flow (as the name suggests however the stream does not flow at all times throughout the year). You may decide that you want to stay there for as long as you can or, if you have time, walk on to Windmill Hill.

There’s a signpost close to the bench indicating a route to Windmill Hill over the fields but my advice is to avoid this as the ground can often be waterlogged or occupied by cows or bullocks. Instead carry on up the lane until you reach the end and then turn right following the lane (then track) up the hill. The original settlement on Windmill Hill is thought to have been made some 5,500 years ago, making it one of the earliest known settlements in the Avebury area (the round barrows within the enclosure however date from the early Bronze Age). Take a moment to sit and imagine what it was like to live there thousands of years ago. If the weather is fine look southwards – you should be able to see Silbury in the distance.

See also Footprints through Avebury by Mike Pitts.

On this day William Stukeley died

2011-03-03T15:39:00.001Z

“Stukeley was an English antiquary and one of the founders of field archaeology, who pioneered the investigation of Stonehenge.

“William Stukeley was born at Holbeach in Lincolnshire, and studied medicine at Cambridge University. While still a student he began making topographical and architectural drawings as well as sketches of historical artefacts. He continued with this alongside his career as a doctor, and published the results of his travels around Britain in 'Itinerarium Curiosum' in 1724.”

More here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stukeley_william.shtml

World Megameet. Sunday, 17 July 2011

2011-02-13T16:35:00.000Z

Heritage Action will be holding its 6th World Megameet this year on Sunday, the 17 July in Avebury.

More here -
http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/avebury-world-megameet-sunday-17-july-2011/

Avebury Landscape Photography Workshop

2011-02-12T05:02:00.004Z

The National Trust will be holding an Avebury Landscape Photography Workshop on Saturday, 26 March 2011.

“Professional photographer Mark Philpott will help you look at landscapes in an exciting new way. Learn how to get the best from your camera and be inspired by the Avebury landscape, its stone circle, cosy cottages, fine church and ancient trees.”

More here -

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/event-search-2/events/show?id=2108046427&direct=1

Fyfield Down: Geology and Landscape walk

2011-01-10T18:46:00.001Z

This an opportunity to learn more about Fyfield Down (Site of Special Scientific Interest) with Peter Keene, formerly senior lecturer in geomorpology at Oxford Brooks University.

“The ability to ‘read’ landscapes or to have ‘an eye for the country’ adds a new dimension to our appreciation of our surroundings. On this walk, from Avebury via Overton Down to Clatford Bottom across the Fyfield SSSI we shall learn through discussion and investigation of the evidence that is observable in the field how the landscape, with its layers of chalk, sarsen rocks, streams and dry valleys, evolved in this part of the Marlborough Downs.”

The walk begins in Avebury at 10:30am on Saturday, 16 July 2011. More here – http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/events/index.php?Action=2&thID=607&prev=1

On This Deity. The re-discovery of Avebury

2011-01-08T09:20:00.003Z

Avebury by John Aubrey

“Today, [7 January] we must celebrate John Aubrey’s dramatic rediscovery of Avebury – the world’s largest prehistoric stone circle – whilst out hunting with fellow royalists during the English Civil War, exactly three hundred and sixty-two years ago. For Aubrey’s heroic retrieval of this vast but (by then) long forgotten Stone Age temple confronted the then-accepted notion that only the coming of the Romans had forced a degree of culture upon the barbaric Ancient British, and also confounded the then-popular 17th-century belief – propounded by the highly influential Scandinavian antiquaries Olaus Magnus and Ole Worm – that all such megalithic culture had its archaic origins in Europe’s far north. Indeed, so rich were the cultural implications of John Aubrey’s re-discovery that – come the fall of Oliver Cromwell’s 11-year-long Commonwealth and the subsequent Restoration of the Monarchy – even the returned King Charles II would himself insist on taking one of Aubrey’s celebrated tours of the Avebury area. But how could the world’s largest stone circle have suffered such a total cultural extinction in the first place? “

Julian Cope

More here –

http://www.onthisdeity.com/7th-january-1649-%E2%80%93-the-re-discovery-of-avebury/

Avebury walks I: The Henge

2010-12-28T14:23:00.009Z

The first in a series of features describing walks from the centre of Avebury that can be done in as little as 30 minutes or, if you have time, longer walks taking several hours.

If you’re arriving in Avebury by coach or car you’ll probably get off in the main car park and then walk along the path to Avebury High Street. Depending on how much time you have it might only be possible to visit the National Trust and Henge shops and then take in one or two of the quadrants of the Henge. If museums are your thing a visit to the little Alexander Kieller Museum is a must.

South-west quadrant

After leaving the Kieller Museum walk back to the High Street and from there enter the south-west quadrant of the Henge (above). You can then walk anticlockwise, following the stones, until you reach a gate that will take you across the road and into the south-east quadrant (look out for the massive stone called the Devil’s Chair). You might have run out of time by now so head towards the Red Lion pub and the High Street, and from there walk back to the path that will take you to the main car park. If you still have an hour or so to spare, however, climb the Bank in the south-east quadrant and follow it in an anticlockwise direction until you reach Green Street, and from there enter the north-east quadrant. From the north-east quadrant you can either carry on walking along the top of the Bank (which will give you a good view of most of the Henge) or cut across the quadrant towards the two tallest stones of the Avebury Henge which are known as the Cove. Cross the road from there and into the north-west quadrant (look out for the massive Diamond Stone by the road) and continue following the stones in an anticlockwise direction until you reach a gate which will bring you back into the lane that leads to the Alexander Kieller Museum in one direction and the main car park in the other.

See also Footprints through Avebury by Mike Pitts.

A Good Reade!

2010-11-19T04:52:00.007Z

A Good Reade! Memoirs of a Wiltshire Life

by F E Pete Reade

Pete Reade was born in 1923 in Henley-on-Thames. At the age of five Pete and his family moved to Avebury. In 2003, in celebration of Pete's 80th birthday, he published a little book called A Good Reade! Memoirs of a Wiltshire Life. The book contains some interesting and evocative descriptions of Avebury as it was in the first part of the twentieth century, and of Pete's life there (he went to school in Avebury, played on and around Silbury Hill, and worked for a while with Alexander Keiller during the latter’s restoration of the Avebury World Heritage Site). Sadly Pete died in April of this year and, as it would be a pity to see Pete's recollections of his life in Avebury go more-or-less unnoticed, the following is the first of a few short extracts from Pete's book - reproduced here by kind permission of his family.

A Good Reade! Extract I

"I was born on January 30th 1923 at Langham Villa (now Langham House Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire... I left Henley in 1928 when I was five years old, so do not remember too much about my life there, but have always had an affection for it and for several years went back there during regatta week... We moved from Henley to Avebury in Wiltshire. My father had obtained a position as Chauffer/Mechanic to Mr H Blagrave, millionaire racehorse owner and trainer at the Grange at Beckhampton which was the next village to Avebury... We had some good neighbours at Avebury and I enjoyed going into the village school along with my many playmates. We had to go about a mile to school across the fields and passing over the River Kennet, which at that time had plenty of water in it. I can remember the traction engines stopping at the bridge on the main road and filling their boilers up with water. During the summer holidays we used to help in the harvest fields and at the end of the day we would argue over who was going to ride on the horses back to the stables. I have spent many happy ours playing in and around the barns at Avebury, and to think that now one has to pay money to go in the great barn there, where I once spent so much time along with my pals."

Extract II

"My Mother took in lodgers occasionally to augment my father's earnings, very often stable lads who were working for Fred Darling the race horse trainer also at Beckhampton... Fred Darling used to give a gigantic firework display on November 5th. He would hold it on a high mound on the site of "Folly Hill", the hill between Avebury and Beckhampton. A great bonfire would be built on top of the mound, around a barrel of tar - but first a great firework display would take place and then the fire would be lit and there would be roast potatoes and chestnuts to be had in plenty. It was always one of the highlights of the year and I should think everyone in all the local villages were there...

"The house we lived in at Avebury was one of a group of eight situated on the main road midway between Avebury and Beckhampton,* what we called "Little Avebury". It is now called "Avebury-Trusloe", probably after Trusloe Manor. The houses stood on a high bank and had a wonderful view of Silbury Hill, another of our favourite play areas, about a mile walk alongside the river Kennet.** We would take our bicycles to the top of Silbury Hill and ride them down the footpath which wound its way down the south side of the hill. On the north side the grass would grow quite long and we would gather up several strands of grass in each hand, tie them together to form loops from top to bottom, then slide down the hill on our backsides, going through each loop in turn...

"My father would sometimes bring home an old tyre from off the horse-box, and we would curled up inside it and roll down the hill outside our houses. It's a wonder we weren't seriously injured, but then there wasn't much traffic on the roads in those days, and we didn't see much danger anyway."

* This would be one of the houses in the row where Mrs and Mrs Dixon now run their B&B.
** Pete refers to this river as the Kennet but which is now (and then?) known as the Winterbourne.

Extract III

"My mother started working in the local pub, which was the Red Lion Hotel, whilst my sister, who was ten years older than me, looked after me in the evenings until my mother came home from work... We had no running water in the houses at Avebury, there was a standpipe situated central to all the houses, and we had to fill buckets and other receptacles from it. The toilet was a bucket closet at the back of the house, and every so often the bucket would have to be emptied into a hole dug in the garden... The Red Lion Hotel where my mother worked had a large room at the rear with a small stage, and it was often used for dances, at which mother often sang, and so became quite a local celebrity...

"The school at Avebury was very small by to-days standards. I recall it consisted of one large room divided into sections by the use of large screens. Sections could be made larger or smaller, depending on the number of pupils in each class... Opposite the school was the lych-gate leading to St James Church, these are roofed gateways originally used for biers (carrying coffins) to rest before the burial in the graveyard. Further on past the Church was the Elizabethan Manor House. It is now owned by the national Trust, but in my day, owned and lived in by Colonel Jenner who had children around our age and many of us were allowed in there at times to play with them. On St George's day a fete would be held in the grounds with dancing around the May-pole. A pageant would be staged depicting St George slaying the Dragon.

"Starting from the school again, (it is now a social centre serving three villages - a new school having been built on what was the old playground) and going down the street in a westerly direction, there was Caswells the bakers, opposite was a small grocery shop. On down the street, we passed several large houses, one of which was the old vicarage. As the road turned sharply right, the building on the left hand corner was the village smithy. I recall many fascinating moments watching Doug Paradise the Smith shoeing horses, and also putting iron tyres on cartwheels."

The Avebury Museum (that never was)

2010-11-11T20:02:00.011Z

Avebury does have a museum (actually it has two) the Alexander Keiller Museum and the 17th century threshing barn – both located behind the National Trust restaurant and shop. The Alexander Keiller Museum is a one-room ‘gallery’ housed in a former stable block and displaying, in old-fashioned cases lining its four rather cramped walls, a collection of finds from the Avebury area. The National Trust website describes this as the ‘stables galleries’. I must have missed the ‘other’ galleries because I came away with the distinct impression of a cramped, poorly-lit single room hardly big enough to accommodate ten schoolchildren let alone twenty adults at any one time. Mind, given the admission fee and a glance of the exhibits inside that you’d be getting for your money, twenty people in there at any one time is probably wishful thinking. By contrast, the threshing barn is an agricultural ‘cathedral’ of impressive dimensions; pity then that there’s practically nothing in it and you’re likely to freeze to death in the winter while attempting to engage in some of the rather dated ’interactive activities’ provided there.

So what’s gone wrong at Avebury? Avebury, that great megalithic masterpiece set, perhaps, in what was once the centre of the Neolithic heartland of the country, has little to show for itself (museum-wise) in presenting to the public all that that heartland meant and produced other than a one-room ‘gallery’ and an oversized, containing-nothing-very-much, threshing barn. Of course there is the Wiltshire Heritage Museum at Devizes, some eight or nine miles from Avebury itself. The Wiltshire Heritage Museum is an excellent museum with an excellent library, and a small but dedicated staff; all, however, in the wrong place. Wrong place why? Because out of the thousands of people, from all over the world, who visit Avebury each year you have to ask yourself how many of them have the time, or are likely to take the trouble, to go to Devizes and avail themselves of the facilities offered at the museum there. The Wiltshire Heritage Museum has much to offer but it is blatantly in the wrong place. It should be in Avebury, not in the stable block (too small) and not in the threshing barn (too big and too drafty). So where then?

The Avebury Museum (that never was)
Rawlin’s (Bonds) Garage and Roadhouse circa 1945

A couple of years ago the answer would have been simple. The old Bonds Garage (formerly Rawlin’s Garage) just outside the north-east sector of the Avebury Henge would have made for the perfect Avebury Museum. Commissioned by Alexander Keiller, the Bonds Garage was actually a 1930s Art Deco building. The building had a certain charm about it, and on closer inspection one could see the ‘Egyptian’ Art Deco elements incorporated into its façade. This Art Deco building even looked like a museum, and with a little creative thinking it could also have functioned as a reference library and an information centre, and would have provided views of both the Avebury Henge and Windmill Hill from its upper stories. A path leading to the north-east quadrant of the circle might also have been laid, facilitating access to that part of this World Heritage Site. With plenty of parking space, and only a very short walk to the Henge itself, it would have been ideal for a roomy, well-situated Avebury Museum. Not any more though. After much opposition from the likes of the late Lord Kennet, Heritage Action and others, the building was demolished two years ago to make room for a new housing development (yes, a new housing development, just metres away from the north-east bank of the Avebury Henge!). As far as I know, neither English Heritage nor the National Trust ever opposed the demolition of Bonds Garage; their objections, for what they were worth, centred on the redevelopment of the site for five new houses.

How sad, how short-sighted, how selfish. Bonds Garage was not only an Art Deco building with a unique history (tied to Alexander Keiller who did so much for Avebury) but also sad for the loss of a great opportunity. While English Heritage, The National Trust and others stood by and said little or nothing this building was reduced to rubble when it could have been a shining example of forward thinking, civic pride and a place of national and international learning.

See following for a detailed discussion of what went wrong with the planning application at the Bonds Garage Site - http://northstoke.blogspot.com/2009/01/bond-garage-and-repercussions.html

Excess Baggage

2010-11-06T18:43:00.008Z

First broadcast in August of this year, “Sandi Toksvig takes listener Sonia Mabberley's advice and travels on the 49 Bus route from Swindon to Devizes on market day calling at Avebury on the way.” Before leaving Swindon, however, Sonia draws Sandi’s attention to one of Ken White’s murals on the side of a terrace house.*

“Ken White is one of Britain's [and certainly one of Wiltshire’s] most successful artists. Perhaps best known for his murals that are sited all over the world in all sorts of different locations, exterior and interior works, to date he has painted over 100 murals. He was also for many years the personal artist for Virgin Boss Richard Branson and has completed works for him in many Virgin establishments throughout the world, including record shops, hotels and airport lounges. With the launch of Virgin Atlantic in June 1984, Ken produced what is probably his most well-known work - the 'Scarlet Lady' emblem which features on all the airline's aircraft.

“A man of undeniable talent and vision, he has also composed several collections of paintings that are widely varied in their inspiration. These include the railway yards where he worked as a child and Ancient Egypt, with his Akhenaten series.”

The Long Way Home by Ken White

Ken’s current exhibition is at the Panter & Hall Galleries in Mayfair; on show are paintings with instantly recognizable Wiltshire backgrounds. The exhibition runs through to 12 November 2010. See -

http://www.panterandhall.com/cgi-bin/db-man/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&mh=91&view_all_records=1&ExhibNum=Exh189

Ken’s website is at - http://www.kenwhitemurals.co.uk/home.html

* http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00vr5bb/Excess_Baggage_06_11_2010/

Avebury Tourist Information Centre under threat of closure

2010-10-22T07:12:00.001+01:00

"The future of the county’s tourist information centres could be under threat after Wiltshire Council announced five of the centres may be handed over to community groups.

"Maggie Moore, a former manager of the TICs in Devizes and Avebury, said both should continue to have TICs operating. She said: “It would be a great shame if they close."

More here -
http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/8467339.Five_tourist_offices_in_Wiltshire_at_threat_of_closure/

Have your say on how Stonehenge and Avebury are managed

2010-09-29T16:39:00.000+01:00

There’s just time (until the end of the month) to have your say on a formal British document to be submitted to UNESCO laying out, inter alia, how you think Stonehenge and Avebury ought to be managed (click on the link in the title).

Avebury: A Journey to the Past by Gordon Kingston

2010-09-26T14:25:00.001+01:00

Part 1 of Gordon's personal, and very sensitive account, of his homecoming journey to Avebury appears on the Heritage Journal today. Part 2 will appear on Tuesday, 28 September and Part 3 on Thursday, 30 September.

Avebury area: Electricity cables finally removed

2010-09-11T04:19:00.005+01:00

Overton Hill barrows (the overhead electric cables have now gone).
Image credit Moss

"The gateway to the Avebury World Heritage Site has been transformed after work to bury unsightly electricity cables was completed..."

"The project, which started over three years ago, was made possible by a partnership involving Wiltshire Council, the National Trust, North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding National Beauty, English Heritage and local farmers. Funding for the work was provided by Scottish and Southern Electricity..."

"The new cables have been buried underneath the major monuments at Overton Hills Seven Barrows Bronze Age barrow cemetery and beneath the Neolithic West Kennet Avenue which originally linked Avebury Stone Circle to the Sanctuary.

"Scottish and Southern Electricity employed archaeologists to examine all the entry and exit points for the moleing machinery to check for any archaeological remains.

"Their work has been monitored by Dr Nick Snashall, National Trust archaeologist who said: “A major eyesore has been eliminated from the World Heritage Site with the removal or these power cables, bringing the landscape closer to its ancient appearance. We’ve also been able to record all the archaeology found during the works, which adds to our story of the development of Avebury.”"

More here -

http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/latestnews.htm?aid=107488&utm_source=Wiltshire+Council&utm_medium=twitter&utm_content=News

2010-09-04T14:23:00.004+01:00

Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)

Richard Jefferies was a novelist, naturalist and a mystic; he grew up in a house (now the Richard Jefferies Museum) close to Coate Water on the outskirts of Swindon. In his book, Wildlife in a Southern County, published in 1879, Jefferies writes of the Ridgeway -

A broad green track runs for many a long, long mile across the downs, now following the ridges, now winding past at the foot of a grassy slope, then stretching away through a cornfield and fallow. It is distinct from the wagon-tracks which cross it here and there, for these are local only, and, if traced up, land the wayfarer presently in a maze of fields, or end abruptly in the rickyard of a lone farmhouse. It is distinct from the hard roads of modern construction which also at wide intervals cross its course, dusty and glaringly white in the sunshine... With varying width, from twenty to fifty yards, it runs like a green ribbon... a width that allows a flock of sheep to travel easily side by side.

Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)

Ridgeway: Barriers keep crime at bay

2010-08-28T12:51:00.005+01:00

Section of the Ridgeway near Wayland's Smithy

Image credit Moss

"BARRIERS installed along Britain’s oldest road have helped cut poaching and hare-coursing, according to police.

"Oxfordshire County Council installed the temporary barriers between Hill Road, Lewknor and Hill Road, Watlington, on the Ridegway National Trail. And they have already seen results with a drop in crime. The blocks were fitted in April to stop poachers, harecoursers and deer stalkers in cars accessing the track, known as the Icknield Way, and to stop thieves driving to isolated farm buildings.

"The pre-historic Ridgeway track runs from Avebury, Wiltshire, to Ivinghoe near Dunstable, across South Oxfordshire."

More here -

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/8356258.Barriers_keep_crime_off_the_Ridgeway/
See also - http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/avebury-is-not-dudley/

Avebury: World Megameet. Saturday, 21 August 2010

2010-08-11T10:16:00.003+01:00

"It’s that time of the year again when we look forward to sun and summer, and our annual (this year being our fifth) picnic at Avebury. As the weather has not been too good for the last two years the picnic on the grass has normally ended up in the Red Lion, with people scattered amongst its many rooms. Fingers crossed for fine weather this year but, if not, the Red Lion in Avebury will again be our venue. Otherwise, the picnic will take place by the recumbent stone in the south-east quadrant of the Avebury Henge from noon onwards on Saturday, 21 August 2010."

"All are welcome. Bring your own food and drink, or eat at one of several pubs around Avebury."

More here -

http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/avebury-world-megameet-saturday-21-august-2010-2/

Visit to excavations at Marden Henge

2010-07-03T11:59:00.003+01:00

An outing to the excavations at Marden Henge (9 km from Devizes) will take place on Thursday, 29 July 2010.

Venue:
13:00 - Optional lunch at The Triple Crown.
13:45 - Meet up for visit in Car Park.
14:00 - On site.

Visit will last approximately one and a half hours. Booking is essential as numbers are limited to 25.

More here -
http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/events/index.php?Action=2&thID=542&prev=1

Bus to link Stonehenge and Avebury

2010-06-23T20:29:00.016+01:00

The Wiltshire Heritage Museum is conducting a survey for a pilot, "...community bus service that will link Stonehenge, Devizes and Avebury." Results from the survey will help them plan the service.

More here -
http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/news/?Action=8&id=105&home=1

And here -
http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/8248608.New_bus_from_Devizes_to_follow_the_stones/

Avebury events

2010-06-13T13:29:00.003+01:00

Avebury: A Journey of Discovery

National Trust experts will, "…lead you on a half-day journey of discovery through this very special landscape."

Meet outside the Barn Gallery on Tuesday, 20 July and Thursday, 22 July 2010 at 10:00.

Meet the Experts at Avebury

Participate in an introductory tour, organised by the National Trust, of the Avebury stone circle and handle finds with archaeologist Nick Snashnall and Alexander Keiller Museum curator Ros Cleal on Sunday, 25 July and Sunday, 1 August 2010.

Meet outside the Barn Gallery at 13:00 on the 25 July and at 15:00 on the 1 August.

Avebury and the Obelisk

2010-05-15T11:32:00.003+01:00

The Obelisk by William Stukeley

The Obelisk (foreground) is thought to have been the largest standing stone in the Avebury complex; it once stood in the south-east quadrant and was still in one piece (though recumbent) when Stukeley made this engraving in 1723. The Obelisk was subsequently broken up and used for building material. The place where the Obelisk stood is now indicated by a concrete marker placed there by Alexander Keiller during his restoration of parts of Avebury in the 1930s.

See also Moss’ feature here -

http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/avebury-focus-on-18th-century-vandalism/?preview=true&preview_id=8493&preview_nonce=a15f45cb03

Avebury. Focus on 18th century vandalism

2010-04-19T16:26:00.004+01:00

"Charles Lucas was a curate in Avebury for several years in the 18th century, during his time there he wrote a long poem about the stones called The Old Serpentine Temple of the Druids at Avebury, which was published in 1795. He was angered at the destruction of the stones by local farmers and also heavily influenced by reading William Stukeley’s book, Abury, A Temple of the British Druids so that the idea of druids and serpents lay at the heart of his interpretation and writings about the great stone circle and henge of Avebury."

Full article by Moss here -

http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/avebury-focus-on-18th-century-vandalism/

The Avenue by Anna Dillon

2010-04-15T14:55:00.001+01:00

Anna Dillon. Landscape Artist

2010-04-15T14:51:00.015+01:00

Anna Dillon was born in 1972 and grew up in a small Wiltshire village called Winterborne Monkton which is about one mile from the World Heritage site of Avebury. She studied illustration and Graphic Design at Falmouth School of Art in Cornwall and then worked as a graphic designer for over 15 years in London and the Middle East. Anna is now a full time, professional artist.

The dramatic countryside of the South of England continually inspires Anna to paint vibrant, colourful and semi abstract landscapes in oil paints. In 2009 she decided to fulfill a personal ambition to walk The Ridgeway. This ancient track holds huge significance for her because it builds a bridge between many of the places she has lived in her life. Starting at Avebury and connecting with the small village of Ashbury near the Uffington White Horse, then on toward her home village of Aston Tirrold on the Berskhire Downs and ending at Ivinghoe Beacon near the village where she bought her first house. As a consequence of this inspirational walk she is working on about twenty large oil paintings of views seen from the Ridgeway. Anna is planning her solo exhibition for 2012.

As a painter she is inspired by the post war artist Paul Nash and the Austrian artist Friedrich Hundertwasser.

Anna Dillon’s work is regularly exhibited at various galleries throughout the West Country and she also has work in private collections around the world from Australia to Finland. Four of her decorative paintings were donated as a gift for his Royal Highness Sultan Qaboos of Oman in the Middle East.

Website: http://www.annadillon.com/#

Anna, along with Bruce Bignold, John Stephen, Judith Payne, Nicky Jones and Jane Ryan will be exhibiting original paintings, prints and cards at Warwick Hall, Church Lane, Burford, Oxfordshire, OX18 4SD on Friday, 16 April 12.00pm – 5.00pm and Saturday, 17 April 10.00am – 5.00pm.

Researching Stonehenge & Avebury

2010-03-25T15:58:00.007Z

A seminar at Devizes Town Hall on Saturday, 22 May 2010 from 10:00 am

"A joint research seminar organised by the Prehistoric Society and the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society in association with the Avebury Archaeological and Historical Research Group

"Recent work in the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site has transformed our understanding of both landscapes, demonstrating how much we can still learn from well-focussed research about even the best-known aspects of prehistoric Britain. With major projects like the Stonehenge Riverside Project, the Longstones Project, and the Silbury Hill Conservation Project recently published or in the post-excavation stage, this seminar will present and assess what we have learnt, and discuss future research directions. It will also inform the revision of the Avebury Research Agenda and aid integration between the two parts of the WHS, which are too often treated entirely separately. A range of speakers, all of whom are currently engaged with research at Stonehenge or Avebury, will discuss what we know and what we still need to know about the landscapes, monuments and material culture of this most significant area for British prehistory."

More here -

http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/events/index.php?Action=2&thID=511&prev=1

Avebury - megaliths & myths

2010-02-24T07:15:00.000Z

"A lecture at the University of Bath will explore the theories and myths surrounding Avebury stone circle.

"In the lecture on Wednesday 24 February, Roger Vlitos will give an illustrated lecture that compares and contrasts the beliefs of those who manage the site, with others who claim it as

their traditional shrine."

More here - http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2010/02/15/pl-avebury/

Pubs: The Who'd a Thought It

2010-02-11T13:55:00.002Z

Well, who’d a thought it!

2010-02-11T13:48:00.009Z

The Who’d a Thought It pub* is just off the A4 on the left-hand side of the road if heading towards Avebury from Marlborough (from Marlborough about 5 miles). The pub has a small bar and drinking area, and a nice little restaurant with an open fire. There's a sheltered beer garden at the back of the pub which is a pleasant place to sit when the weather's fine (though the garden furniture could do with a bit of an upgrade). Good food, beers and wine, and not too expensive. Probably the best ham, egg and chips to be had in the County of Wiltshire. Downside is the heating, and I spent a miserable hour or so in there one Christmastime with my hat and coat on because the radiators were turned off to 'economise'.

The Who’d a Thought It is just about close enough to Piggledene to be able to park at the pub and walk back there. In the opposite direction the sarsen drift at Lockeridge is about five minuets' drive away, and that road will also take you to Alton Priors and Alton Barnes, with a magnificent view of the Vale of Pewsey on the way. Alternatively, if you're heading directly for Avebury, once past the Lockeridge sarsen drift look out for a road on your right signposted for East Kennet. From the top of the hill this road will give you a lovely surprise view of Silbury in the distance and take you past footpaths leading to East Kennet Long Barrow.

* "Wiltshire County Council widened the A.4 in the early 1930s, in so doing demolishing an old row of cottages at George Bridge Overton. Also flattened were a number of cottages in Fyfield, together with the local pub, ‘The Fighting Cocks’. Lockeridge already had one pub ‘The Mason’s Arms’, now a private house. When the landlady heard that another was to be built next to Meux Cottage she remarked “Well, who’d a’thought it”. The name stuck."

From the PARISH OF OVERTON CUM FYFIELD AND EAST KENNETT booklet of 1987. More here -
http://www.upperkennetnews.co.uk/Heritage/VillageHeritage.htm#ABOUT_THIS_BOOKLET

Keiller's Avenue of horse chestnuts felled. Image credit Willow

2010-02-10T22:06:00.001Z

Alexander Keiller's avenue of horse chestnuts felled

2010-02-10T22:02:00.003Z

The Alexander Keiller avenue of horse chestnuts, which runs alongside the A4361 at Avebury, and which was planted by Keiller in 1937, has been felled (the trees are visible in the header photograph above). The National Trust said the trees had phytopthora (bleeding canker) and despite its efforts it was not possible to save them. A National Trust spokeswoman is reported as saying that the Trust will be, "...replacing them with lime trees which are well-suited to the area..." The horse chestnuts on the other side of the road are on private land and presumably will eventually also succumb to phytopthora and will also need to be cut down. If the proposed housing development on the former Bonds Garage site (visible on the right in the above photograph) is allowed to go ahead this will almost certainly mean that the new houses will be visible from the bank of the north-east quadrant of the Avebury Henge.

More here -
http://aveburymatters.blogspot.com/2009/01/north-east-quadrant-of-avebury-henge_17.html and here -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/8491237.stm

The Google Street View of Avebury

2010-01-22T15:59:00.001Z

For those unable to get to Avebury as often as they might like, this is a useful tool for exploring the Henge -

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=U[...]AHaOxg00w&cbp=12,206.68,,0,4.7

North-east quadrant

2010-01-22T15:56:00.001Z

Giants of the Royal Society

2010-01-09T14:37:00.003Z

Bill Bryson, writing in The Times today, pays homage to (among others) John Lubbock who, "...was a banker by profession, but was in addition a distinguished botanist, astronomer, expert on the social behaviour of insects, politician and antiquarian. Among much else, he coined the terms palaeolithic, mesolithic and neolithic in 1865. But his real contribution to life was to push through Parliament the first Ancient Monuments Protection Act, which became law in 1882. People forget how much of Britain’s historic fabric was nearly destroyed in the past. Before Lubbock’s intervention, nearly half of Avebury was cleared away for housing, and at one point it was even threatened that Stonehenge, then still in private hands, might be dismantled and shipped to America. Without Lubbock, many stone circles, tumuli and other historical features of the landscape would have vanished long ago.

More here -

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article6979468.ece

West Kennet Long Barrow. Image credit Willow

2009-12-22T19:57:00.002Z

Events at Avebury. December 2009 - February 2010

2009-12-19T18:41:00.004Z

Circles in Time: Photo competition to mark the turning of the year at Avebury.
Anti-lovers walk: 14 February, 10.30am – 12.30pm.
Discover the Avebury Landscape: 18 February, 10.30am – 1pm.

More here – http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/eventsNet/default.aspx?propertyID=316

Diamonds are forever (hopefully)

2009-12-16T18:46:00.009Z

"A coach penetrating deep into the sacred heart of the Avebury complex, never right!" Image credit Arcturus

The Diamond Stone (or Swindon Stone) in the corner of the north-west sector of the Avebury Henge is thought to be one of the few stones in the Avebury complex that has never fallen or been moved. In other words this massive megalith, which is some four metres high, three metres wide and over a metre thick (and estimated to weigh nearly fifty tons!) has stood in its present position since it was first erected there some four thousand years ago.

The Diamond Stone (fourth stone at top closest to road) as recorded by William Stukeley in his 1724 Groundplot of Avebury (see below)

But for how much longer will this 'diamond' from our megalithic past remain unmoved, let alone undamaged? The Diamond Stone sits perilously close to the Swindon-bound A4361 that runs through Avebury, indeed one corner of the stone hangs over the fence between the grass verge and the road itself and is subject to constant (and during the morning and evening rush hours heavy) vibration from passing traffic. It is astonishing that the local authorities have only recently introduce a 30 mile an hour speed limit through Avebury but is this enough to reduce vibration to the stone let alone minimize damage to it should it be hit by a passing car, bus or heavy goods vehicle?

The Diamond Stone at the edge of the Swindon-bound A4361. Image credit Moss

Surely the answer is to narrow the road at this point (increasing the grass verge nearest the megalith) and install road signs with alternating priority arrows. This would have the effect of distancing the stone from the road, reducing vibration to it by limiting the speed of traffic passing by, and would also have the added benefit of making the road safer for people crossing between the north-west and north-east sectors of the Henge. This is not rocket science; road signs with red and black arrows indicating priority are found all over the country so why not here? With a little imaginative planning two simple electronic road signs could be installed and programmed to change their priority with the flow of traffic during the morning and evening rush hours.

There has been an appalling amount of destruction of, and damage to, the Avebury megaliths over recent centuries, and the Diamond Stone is sadly yet another tragedy waiting to happen there - let's act now to protect this monument from our ancient past from similar damage before it is too late!

Maps. William Stukeley's 1724 Groundplot of Avebury

2009-12-14T21:59:00.007Z

Click on the map for close-ups

Obituaries. Professor Humphrey Kay

2009-12-05T11:03:00.003Z

Professor Humphrey Kay (1923-2009) has died aged 86. Professor Humphrey Kay was an inspirational pioneer in the treatment of leukaemia and responsible for transforming the way doctors dealt with the disease.

"On retirement from the medical world he effectively began a second career – as a naturalist – inspired by his childhood love of wildlife and the environment. It wasn't long before he made a name for himself in this field too.

"His colleagues recall that, even though he came to it late, Kay was a born naturalist with an enthusiastic, inquiring mind and a keen eye. He became an active member of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and was elected to its council in 1983.

"One of the trust's most valuable fund-raising activities arose from his simple but original idea of a sponsored walk from Avebury to Stonehenge each May Day holiday. He would also take groups of Marlborough College boys on excursions into nearby Savernake Forest, organising moth trapping surveys at night."

More here -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/medicine-obituaries/6729112/Professor-Humphrey-Kay.html

The Rod of Asclepius

2009-11-24T06:57:00.009Z

Roman relief of Aesculpius embedded in the south wall of the Church of St Giles, Tockenham

Several miles further north of Clyffe Pypard (and at the end of our journey in this direction) lies the Church of St Giles at Tockenham. Writing on her blog, Northstoke -

http://northstoke.blogspot.com/2008/01/alton-barnes-church-st.html Thelma Wilcox says -

"This church is not of notable interest, but the reused Roman statue embedded in the wall probably came from the Roman villa nearby.

""Roman tesserae, tile fragments and pottery sherds were found at Tockenham and a possible villa was suggested. The site has been subject to investigation by the Time Team in 1994 and was confirmed as being a villa with associated structures, probably dating from the 2nd to 4th centuries. Finds from the excavations have included pottery, tesserae, window glass fragments and roofing tile. Scheduled." Taken from Pastscape Monument No.887838.

""The Rod of Asclepius symbolizes the healing arts by combining the serpent, which in shedding its skin is a symbol of rebirth and fertility with the staff, a symbol of authority, befitting the god of Medicine. The snake wrapped around the staff is widely claimed to be a species of rat snake, Elaphe longissima, also known as the Aesculapian (Asclepian) snake. It is native to south-eastern Europe, Asia Minor and some central European spa regions, apparently brought there by Romans for their healing properties." Taken from Wikipedia.

"The snake wrapped round Aesculpius's rod is a single snake and not to be confused with Mercury's double snakes.

"There are also wooden posts embedded in the south wall of the church - Pevesner says, that inside, the bell-turrets stand on old posts, and that they are flanked by new timber-framed work."

Accommodation: The Goddard Arms

2009-11-23T07:37:00.004Z

Clyffe Pypard

This entry on accommodation in the Avebury area is something of a personal one and in memory of Lesley, the former landlady of the Goddard Arms at Clyffe Pypard. Lesley has now sadly passed away but, along with her husband Terry, she ran the Goddard Arms for many years before they both moved to Cornwall.

Lesley, Terry, the Swindon artist Ken White* Jan, Mike, Ted, Ray (now Gilbert) O'Sullivan and myself were friends and fellow students at Swindon School of Art in the mid 1960s. During their time at the Goddard Arms Lesley and Terry created not only one of the friendliest pubs in Wiltshire but also encouraged artists and musicians from all over the country to exhibit and perform there. Lesley and Terry also created one of the first places in the area to offer authentic Thai cuisine and their Thai evenings and 'lock-ins' became legendary.

The Goddard Arms at Clyffe Pypard is one of the few places in the Avebury area offering hostel accommodation. Though not really within walking distance of Avebury it is only a short journey there by car or bicycle. More information here - http://www.yha.org.uk/find-accommodation/south-west-england/hostels/clyffe-pypard/index.aspx

* Ken's website is here - http://www.kenwhitemurals.co.uk/home.html Perhaps one of his best-known works is of a World War II pinup, arm outstretched and about to drop a handkerchief bearing the colours of British Airways. The image can be seen on the nose of Virgin Atlantic aircraft - http://www.kenwhitemurals.co.uk/murals/49.jpg Ken is also well-known for his murals, as well as his paintings depicting Swindon's links with the Great Western Railway.

Avebury: its lesser-know features. John Aubrey and Nikolaus Pevsner at Clyffe Pypard

2009-11-18T14:25:00.027Z

The slate headstone of Nikolaus Pevsner and his wife Lola at the Church of St Peter, Clyffe Pypard

A couple of miles down the lane from Winterbourne Bassett lies the little hamlet of Clyffe Pypard.* John Aubrey (1626-1697) visited Clyffe Pypard in, or around, 1660 - some twelve years after his visit to Avebury where he records being, "...wonderfully surprised at the site of these vast stones, of which I had never heard before, as also the mighty bank and graffe (grass) about it." At Clyffe Pypard he describes the Church of St Peter as, "Here is a handsome Church, and have been very good windowes."

While the tower, nave, aisles and porch of the Church of St Peter were built in the 15th century there remains some 14th century stonework in the south porch. Further study may show that the Norman church was built on the foundations of an earlier Saxon one and, as at other Christianised sites, the Saxon church may have been built on a pre-Christian structure. Six of the buttresses have sarsen stones under them, only one of which has been cut to the shape of the buttress. The other five sarsens, one of which is very large, are left protruding as they do under the buttresses of the Church of St James, Avebury; the Church of St Katherine and St Peter, Winterbourne Bassett and the Church of St John the Baptist, Pewsey.**

The Church of St Peter is situated at the bottom of a steep escarpment and is set in a well-cared for graveyard surrounded by trees. There is a distinct air of a 'grove' about the place which is reminiscent of the grove, and its disordered sarsens, by the river close to Pewsey Church. The leafy and sarsen-paved footpath that leads east past the church comes out on a secluded meadow with a magnificent tree at its centre. Nearby is a stream and lake. Nikolaus Pevsner, art and architectural historian and author of The Buildings of England, is buried with his wife at a place between the lake and the church - their grave is marked by a headstone of slate.

About a mile from Clyffe Pypard, towards Broad Town and close to Little Town Farmhouse, is the cottage which Pevsner used as a country retreat. The cottage was formerly the home of the poet and literary critic Geoffrey Grigson, whose friends included Paul Nash and John Piper. Nash and Piper between them produced numerous paintings of Avebury, West Kennet Long Barrow, Stonehenge and other megalithic structures.***

.
* The 'Clyffe' of Clyffe Pypard refers to the adjacent escarpment. 'Pypard' refers to Richard Pypard who was Lord of the Manor in 1231.

**http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/8627/st_peters_church_clyffe_pypard.html

*** http://www.colander.org/gallimaufry/Grigson.html

Geoffrey Grigson's 1960s guide to touring the countryside (The Shell Country Alphabet) has been republished. For a review see -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/08/shell-country-alphabet-geoffrey-grigson

William Stukeley at Winterbourne Bassett

2009-10-22T19:41:00.015+01:00

The "Celtic Temple" at Winterbourne Bassett. From William Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiousum of 1724. Note Silbury in the background

A mile or so along the lane from the White Horse Inn (below) at Winterbourne Bassett are the remains of a stone circle, described by William Stukeley in Abury, a Temple of the British Druids, with Some Others Described of 1724 thus, "At Winterburn-basset, a little north of Abury, in a field north-west of the church, upon elevated ground, is a double circle of stones concentric, 60 cubits diameter. Many of the stones have late been carried away. West of it is a single, broad, flat, and high stone, standing by itself. And about as far northward from the circle, in a ploughed field, is a barrow set round with, or rather compos'd of large stones. I take this double circle to have been a family chapel, as we may call it, to an archdruid dwelling near thereabouts, whilst Abury was his cathedral."

All that is now visible above ground are three fallen stones in a field. The standing stone on the verge of the T-junction opposite the field was erected in the last decade of the 20th century and was originally pink in colour, indicating that it had probably never formed part of a stone circle.

The Winterbourne Bassett Stone Circle today; only three stones from the circle now remain. Image credit Chris Brooks

Stonehenge, Bluehenge and a heritage cover-up?

2009-10-05T18:49:00.010+01:00

Though somewhat outside the remit of Avebury Matters, the recent announcement in the press of a 'Bluehenge' close to Stonehenge is exciting news indeed. One wonders, however, why knowledge of this discovery was not made public before now. Not all remains hidden however. Mike Parker-Pearson (director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project ) is due to give a talk at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum on the 10 October* and it seems certain that Bluehenge will not only be given more of a hearing on Saturday than hitherto planned but will now also be discussed in some detail. Sadly, the cover-up label is going to stick to this one for a long time to come - though we can't help thinking those playing their cards so close to their chests in this instance have only themselves to blame for that label.

But putting that to one side, if there's no danger to the Bluehenge site itself surely it should have been mentioned when it was first found. Any talk of first having to verifying 'carbon dating' before informing the public of the find really is nonsense; of course such data needs to be examined before anything scholarly is published but preliminary findings, especially findings of such a high concentration of bluestone chips so close to Stonehenge, is a pretty clear indication of something very important within the area. Something surely the public has an immediate right to know about and not something that should be kept secret until individuals, corporations and organizations think they should be told.

So what's the real reason for the delay in announcing this potentially very important discovery at Bluehenge? Couldn't be could it that, because of sponsorship deals, our American friends will get to see it on their TV screens before we do? We smell a rat with a big $ sign round its neck and a couple of book deals under its paw. It's all very well saying that the only way to fund such excavations is to secure sponsorship deals but, although that might be true in purely financial terms it also smacks of a serious lack of moral fibre - ie the selling of heritage discoveries to the highest bidder. We're accustomed to seeing such shenanigans in politics and international trade - re: Britain's kowtowing to the Chinese in order to secure our markets there while China's ethnic minorities are flushed down the pan; or 'our' sucking up to Saudi Arabia re: BAA Systems in order for 'us' to secure lucrative arms deals with said same 'county') but it's sad to see it now happening in the world of archaeology. What happened to ethics and things done in the public interest? In this case our heritage, and keeping us informed as and when it happens

As with a lot of things with the heritage label, protecting it and sharing new finds with the public as and when they occur doesn't seem to matter any more. Sponsorship, TV deals, the writing of books, papers and the advancement of personal reputations seem to be far more important.

* Mike Parker-Pearson will be talking at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum on Saturday, 10 October 2009. More information here - http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/events/index.php?Action=2&thID=452&prev=1 His forthcoming book, If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge, published by the National Geographic Society, will be available from April 2010.

Wiltshire Heritage Museum. Image credit Willow

2009-10-02T09:54:00.004+01:00

Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes has started to catalogue and digitise all the books in its Library -

http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/library/ onto the Google library - 5000 so far in five months. The fully digitised versions (Full view) are still limited but there are some real gems in the list that presumably will eventually get the treatment. Meanwhile, there are the Limited previews which are pretty good, and Phil Harding's enthusiasm for the library is infectious - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qqU8owM4BQ

Avebury: its lesser-known features. Tom Robinson

2009-08-08T22:03:00.014+01:00

Tom Robinson: Avebury stone-smasher

William Stukeley (1687-1765) felt sufficient disgust at the destruction of the stones at Avebury to parody farmer Tom Robinson by christening him “The Herostratus of Avebury” and producing this tailpiece for his Aubury book in 1743. On the left smoke rises from one of the burning pits where the stones were first heated and then dowsed with water to crack them. A bat hangs ominously above Robinson, while on his right a hag presides over the dark and tragic scene of even more stones awaiting destruction.

Tom Robinson’s headstone is in Avebury’s churchyard.

More here – http://www.avebury-web.co.uk/the_shame.html
and from the H M J Underhill Archive here -
http://web.arch.ox.ac.uk/archives/underhill/viewarchive.php?albumID=1

Sir John Lubbock on building new houses at Avebury

2009-08-08T13:59:00.010+01:00

The continued destruction of prehistoric monuments is a fact which I am sure we all deeply regret, and which reflects little credit on us as a nation. This year a portion of “Abury”, the grandest monument of its kind in this country (perhaps in the world), was actually sold for building purposes in cottage allotments.

Sir John Lubbock speaking to the Anthropological Institute on 15th of January 1872.

"Recently the current statutory guardians of Avebury, English Heritage, expressed their opposition to the development of the site of the adjacent Bonds Garage for housing yet then failed to exercise their available powers towards it, thus allowing building to go ahead – which it will shortly – thus blighting the northern approach to Sir John’s grandest monument of its kind in this country (perhaps in the world) forever."

More here - http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/

The White Horse Inn

2009-08-04T11:45:00.002+01:00

Pubs: The White Horse Inn

2009-08-04T11:39:00.011+01:00

Just a few miles from Avebury, heading towards Swindon on the A4361, is the charming White Horse Inn at Winterbourne Bassett (look out for the pub sign on your left if approaching from Avebury; the pub is about a quarter of a mile down the road on the right (post code SN4 9QB for those with satnavs).

There's no accommodation at the White Horse, and the pub is not open all day, but the place has a friendly atmosphere and an extensive à la carte menu of home-cooked English and European food which is served either in the pub or in the light, air-conditioned conservatory. There are lawned gardens and ample parking space at the front and sides. The dining areas tend to get busy at peak times so it's a good idea to book in advance -

http://www.whitehorsewinterbournebassett.co.uk/contactmain.htm

Fourth annual Heritage Action Megameet

2009-07-18T08:50:00.013+01:00

Strolling round the henge and through the stones, memories of previous visits filled my mind, individual stones calling up reminders of who did this, how this happened, where particular photos were taken, what conversations took place. I smiled inside, at a tapestry of life, friends, lovers, experiences and growth woven over the years amidst the stones – stones that never change, yet can change your life in subtle degrees from the moment you enter their world.

treaclechops. 10th August 2006ce
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/49562/return_of_the_native_part_i.html

Just a reminder that we’re now one day away from Heritage Action's http://www.heritageaction.org/ fourth annual Avebury Megameet on the 1st of August. If you haven’t ventured forth for one of these before please give it a try. Put faces to names and meet up with some of the folks you may have only ever cyber-chatted to before. The Avebury Megameets are an informal gathering of people from all walks of life (artists, archaeologists, conservators, historians, pagans and others) but all with an interest in the Avebury Henge and our megalithic heritage in general.

The Megameet will be in the south-east quadrant, either by the Obelisk marker stone or close to the stone here and will kick off from around noon. It’s a good idea to bring something to sit on and something to eat and drink too if you fancy it. If the weather’s bad we’ll be in one of the rooms at the Red Lion (the front largest room if it’s available). Look out for this T-shirt – designed by BuckyE for the 2007 Avebury Megameet!

The Cove, from an engraving by William Stukeley. Designed by BuckyE

Accommodation: Summer solstice camping 2009

2009-06-12T18:21:00.006+01:00

"Overnight camping will be permitted on the nights of Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 June.

"Location: Dedicated area near the main car park. We welcome your donations towards covering the cost of refuse and toilet facilities."

More info here - http://tinyurl.com/mbbu5j

Avebury ramblings

2009-06-06T11:22:00.002+01:00

"Clare Balding explores walks that are good for the mind, body and soul.”

This episode on BBC Radio 4 begins in the Vale of Pewsey and ends In Avebury. A few little inaccuracies about Avebury but those can be forgiven as it is such a pleasure to listen to two balladeers so enthused with their pilgrimage.

“Clare walks in Wiltshire with the ‘modern-day Troubadours’ who have been singing for their supper as they tramp the length and breadth of Britain. After studying The Canterbury Tales from his university desk, Will decided he needed to experience the route on foot, a journey that has now expanded to walking across Britain with school friends Ed and Ginger.”

Book reviews: Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy

2009-05-16T22:50:00.011+01:00

Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy: From Giza to Easter Island by Giulio Magli

"In the new authoritative study of the growing discipline of archaeoastronomy, Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy: From Giza to Easter Island, Professor Guilio Magli asks, 'Was it an attempt to reproduce the sky on Earth? To bring down the power of the stars to where they could see it, worship it, and use it?'

"The motives of ancient civilisations have often been misconstrued, maligned, or even dismissed. Magli shows the limitations of orthodox archaeology in relation to astronomically based artefacts and examines what led the ancients to construct such magnificent structures as the city of Teotihuacan in the Mexico Valley, the Ceremonial Centre of Chaco Canyon in the United States, the Avebury stone circle in Great Britain, and the great pyramids in Egypt."

More here - http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09051510-the-role-astronomy-antiquity-examined-new-book

Avebury: its lesser-known features. Staddle stones

2009-04-22T15:31:00.010+01:00

First-time visitors to Avebury might be forgiven for spending only an hour or so there (usually in the south-east or south-west quadrants) before popping into the Henge or National Trust shops for souvenirs. More frequent visitors may have gone a little further afield, along the West Kennet Avenue, and perhaps following the sign at the bottom of the Avenue have climbed Waden Hill for that magnificent and unexpected view of Silbury from Waden’s summit. Others, who have visited Avebury many times and over many years, will have discovered more of its lesser-known features and will have shared much of that information on The Modern Antiquarian and similar forums dedicated to megalithic interests; in so doing they will have contributed to our ever-growing understanding of the Avebury World Heritage Site and surrounding area. While it is true that the whereabouts of some of the features at Avebury are perhaps best not posted on the internet for danger of theft or vandalism the same cannot be said for all of its lesser-known features.

Staddle stone supporting the old wooden storehouse at Winterbourne Monkton

Frequent visitors to Avebury will probably have seen the enigmatic figure carved on the church font there; some may also have been to the Church of St Mary Magdalene at nearby Winterbourne Monkton to see the fascinating figure carved on its font. Some visitors to Winterbourne Monkton however may not have noticed the staddle stones supporting the old wooden storehouse to the right of the church gate - a rare find these days and a feature within walking distance of the Avebury Henge itself.

In sharing with others the lesser-known features of our megalithic and non-megalithic heritage at Avebury we are not only increasing our knowledge and enjoyment of this World Heritage Site and its surrounding area we are also drawing attention to its wider importance - and in so doing hopefully also helping to ensure its long-term protection.

This feature first appeared on the Heritage Journal -

http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/ and is re-posted here with Heritage Action's kind permission.

Avebury's restoration and the Stukeley Line

2009-04-19T11:41:00.063+01:00

Conservator, conservationist, restorer - do they mean the same thing? Do they do the same job? The answer is no, and the differences can have a profound effect on how we protect and preserve our heritage. The conservationist (perhaps best defined as one concerned with the preservation of the environment and it’s natural resources) falls somewhat outside the scope of our remit. But what of the conservator and the restorer - how best to define their role and their approach to preserving our cultural heritage?

If you drop a T’ang Period vase and it shatters into a thousand pieces you’re more than likely to take it to a ceramics restorer to restore to, as near as possible, its appearance before you dropped it. If you found a crushed T’ang vase six metres down in a collapsed tomb you’re more than likely call in a ceramics conservator to piece it together. Why a conservator and not a restorer? Well, in the first scenario (dropping the vase) you have an object that was in one state one second and in a totally different state less than a second afterwards, and if nothing else you’d at least have some recollection of how it looked before being dropped. This time factor is important. If we’re talking about the T’ang vase in scenario II (the crushed vase in the tomb) we’d not only be calling in a ceramics conservator we’d also be consulting with archaeologists, historians and perhaps other specialists. Why? Because there’s a time factor involved here as well (a much longer one relating to the length of time the crushed vase lay in the tomb compared to the length of time the other vase took to hit the floor and shatter). Bear with us - this time factor is at the core of our argument for the conservation and restoration of the Avebury Henge.

In 1991 Michelangelo’s David sculpture had one of its toes knocked off. Not unlike the dropped T’ang vase we fortunately had all the pieces of the toe before it was vandalised and a photographic record before that happened; we also knew when it was knocked off, how it was done and exactly where the toe belonged on David’s foot. No problem, the toe got stuck back and the statue was restored to its former state. Compare the David statue with the Venus de Milo; here we have little or no idea when her arms were lost, little idea what they looked like, nor what position they were originally in. Result? The conservator would do nothing about the lost arms (and a responsible restorer would certainly not try to restore them to some modern interpretation of how the arms might have once appeared). The conservator might also take a more holistic approach to the statue - checking its overall condition, as well as where and how it might be displayed (or transported to) in the future. More than anything else the conservator would endevour to preserve the vase for posterity without the addition or subtraction of anything that might damage it any way.

Enter the Avebury standing stones. Many of the Avebury stones were subjected, a few centuries ago, to intentional firing. Once the stones were hot enough cold water was poured over them so that they cracked and could then be smashed and used as local building material (many walls and buildings in Avebury village are made from the shattered remains of standing stones). Some of Avebury’s standing stones, those not subject to this appalling cultural vandalism, still lay where they fell - either naturally or deliberately toppled over. Some Avebury stones were even buried - perhaps to hide them, perhaps even to protect them, and some of those stones still remain below ground today. The point is that many of the fallen or buried stones at Avebury lie very close to where they once stood.

Fallen stone in the south-east quadrant of Avebury. Image credit Littlestone

Enter again our time factor. One of the most impressive stones at Avebury is the taller of the two remaining Cove stones (the one on the left in the photograph below). Several years ago this Cove stone began to tilt dangerously and a decision was made to pull it back into a safe and stable position. Put another way, the Cove stone was restored to as near as possible its original position. The decision to do this was made because the stone was in danger of falling; had it fallen it may have shattered, but even if it had not shattered the stone would almost certainly have been re-erected. That being the case one is forced to asked why the other Avebury stones (those that still lay fallen or buried) have not also been re-erected. What is it that dictates today that one Avebury stone (the Cove stone in this case) is worthy of re-erecting while the other Avebury stones are not? Well, the cost of such a restoration project springs to mind (and in the present economic climate we might even have some sympathy for that argument) but what is totally puzzling (and quite unacceptable) is the often advanced argument against restoration which goes somewhat along the lines of, “To which period of Avebury should these fallen/buried stones be erected?” To those who ask this question we’d first like to ask, “From which principle are you arguing against their re-erection? The principle that they cannot be restored to their former position or the principle that they are best conserved where they now lay fallen or buried?” There is also another argument, one that deserves no attention here, and that is the argument that says to erect more of the Avebury stones would attract more visitors to the Avebury World Heritage Site. Heritage Action leaves the reader to assess the merits (or perhaps the non-merits) of this argument for themselves.

The two remaining Cove stones in the north-east quadrant at Avebury. Image credit Littlestone

Returning to the argument of the erection or non-erection of the Avebury stones on the grounds of conservation or restoration (the only legitimate arguments for this action at the Avebury World Heritage Site) the arguments for and against are actually quite simple, with the argument for conservation and restoration winning hands down over the argument against. Let’s take the conservation argument against re-erecting the stones first. It does no good whatsoever for a stone to lay visible and prostrate while livestock and irresponsible visitors to Avebury climb all over it, deposit detritus in its crevices and allow the elements to weather it in a way that is totally at odds with the designs of the Henge builders. Further, the Avebury stones that are buried are in no safer a condition if left there than if they were re-erected and visible - and may even be in a more perilous condition in that state from agricultural activity (or even theft). The argument for leaving the Avebury stones buried or fallen doesn’t stack up (not even from an archaeological point of view let alone a cultural one). If these stones were Roman statues they would not lay fallen or buried for long; they would be excavated, restored, conserved and put on display - yet these wonderful megalithic artefacts from our distance past are allowed to remain fallen or buried at Avebury. Why? The argument against the re-erection of the Avebury stones on archaeological, conservation or cultural grounds has no merit in it whatsoever. So what about the often wheeled-out anti-restoration argument of, ”To which period of Avebury should these fallen/buried stones be restored?” Those who advance this argument usually have in mind the pre-historic appearance of Avebury, but that reference point is an arbitrary one and, frankly, irrelevant. If we were to follow the logic of that argument we could also apply it to the Avebury Cove and how it looked in the photograph below. No-one can seriously suggest that doing away with the eyesore that was once the Cove garage, with its wind turbine and surrounding rubbish, and restoring the Cove to what it was before the garage was built was not the right and proper course of action. In other words, the argument against the restoration and the re-erection off the Avebury stones to at least what they looked like within recorded history is nonsensical.

The Avebury Cove and garage before Alexander Keiller’s restoration work

So, if the argument for the re-erection of the fallen and buried Avebury stones (from a conservation and cultural point of view) is shown to be the correct one do we have a point of reference from which to proceed? Fortunately we do, we have both a detailed and accurate record of how the Avebury Henge looked in the 1720s and how it looked just a few years later after so many of its stones were broken up or lay fallen or buried. Like David’s toe we have not only a point in time from which we can work out a restoration policy we also have a detailed and accurate record to accompany it - we have the Stukeley Line.

William Stukeley (1687-1765) was the first person to study and illustrate Avebury accurately and in detail. His 1720s illustrations and Groundplot map of the Avebury Henge are an astonishing testimony to his powers of observation and the meticulous way he went about recording Avebury before it was so brutally vandalised a few years later. Stukeley wrote of the appalling destruction taking place at Avebury as, ”…this stupendous fabric, which for some thousands of years, had brav’d the continual assaults of weather, and by the nature of it, when left to itself, like the pyramids of Egypt, would have lasted as long as the globe, hath fallen a sacrifice to the wretched ignorance and avarice of a little village unluckily plac’d within it.” William Stukeley was powerless to stop the destruction of so many stones that had once formed the proud Avebury Henge but in 1743 his studies at Avebury came to fruition with the publication his, Abury, A Temple of the British Druids, With Some Others Described.* Stukeley may be forgiven for thinking that there was a connection between Avebury and the Druids; our debt to him lies not in his beliefs but in the more than twenty detailed illustrations he made of Avebury and the surrounding area (including Silbury and West Kennet Long Barrow). These illustrations stand as a pictorial record of how Avebury looked at the beginning of the 18th century and it is to these illustrations that we can, and should, refer when considering the restoration of the Avebury Henge.

The Stukeley Line is a clear one drawn in the sands of Avebury’s long history and there is no better one. We, as Avebury’s present cultural custodians, would be failing in our duty not to restore Avebury to something of its former glory based on Stukeley’s meticulous record of the place. A duty that transcends local politics, archaeological aspirations or financial constraints and gives back to the international community a place truly worthy of the title World Heritage Site.

Avebury from the north-east quadrant in 1722. From William Stukeley’s Abury

* For a full facsimile of William Stukeley’s book see “Abury - A Temple of the British Druids”

Among these ancient memories

2009-02-17T16:41:00.002Z

To-day, among these ancient memories, has taken me out of myself wonderfully. I can't tell you how good Avebury has been for me. This afternoon half my consciousness has seemed to be a tattooed creature wearing a knife of stone.

From The Secret Places of the Heart by H G Wells

A knife of stone

2009-02-17T16:38:00.001Z

Lectures: The Invisible Stone Circle: To See or Not to See

2009-02-10T16:06:00.000Z

"There are hundreds of stone circles in the British Isles. Every year hundreds of thousands of people visit them. Sometimes there is a sign, usually uninformative, occasionally inaccurate. There may be stones in a ring, tall stones, small stones, fallen stones – but nothing else. Just silence."

A lecture by the renowned archaeologist Aubrey Burl will be held from 2:30pm on Saturday, 21 March 2009 at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes. For further information please see -
http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/events/index.php?Action=2&thID=384&prev=1

Avebury: South-west quadrant

2009-02-10T16:04:00.000Z

Reviews: PARISH OF OVERTON CUM FYFIELD AND EAST KENNETT. VILLAGE HERITAGE 1987

2009-02-10T12:05:00.002Z

"Written 20 years ago this year this booklet describes the history of this area as seen at the time. What was then a near memory is in danger of becoming lost as the demography of the area changes from close knit farming communities to more mobile residents with little to no farming context. In this document you will find the rapid changes that shaped this valley and see how much has changed in the last 20 years. This is a live document again and can be updated with new stories and information. Enjoy this window into the past and look to the future."

Particularly interesting sections on The Kennet Sarsen Industry and The sarsen workers tools. The full text of the booklet is here -
http://www.upperkennetnews.co.uk/Heritage/VillageHeritage.htm#ABOUT_THIS_BOOKLET

East Kennet

2009-02-10T12:03:00.002Z

Accommodation: Camping during festivals

2009-02-07T15:56:00.002Z

The Western Daily Press reports that -

"The National Trust, which owns much of the village, has found itself caught in the middle of several different interest groups: English Heritage wants to preserve the stones, the council wants to keep roads open, the police want to stop anti-social behaviour, the pagans want to uphold their right to their religious observances and residents want the three-day 'invasion' kept to a minimum.
"Residents were given three options by the trust. The first was to ban overnight camping in the large village car park, the second was to create a new campsite east of West Kennet Avenue, away from the homes, and the third was to continue to allow limited camping in the overflow car park.
"The trust said results showed villagers wanted a temporary campsite. "It was felt the option of doing nothing could create significant problems," said Mr Green.
""Although there is no definitive outcome, the trend of responses points towards the continued use of the overflow car park for a limited number of tents as being the least offensive option.""

Full story here -

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/wdp/news/Pagans-able-camp-Avebury-festivals/article-675615-detail/article.html

Silbury. Image credit Willow

2009-02-05T22:23:00.003Z

Silbury Hill: Like some great beacon in the night

2009-01-27T18:34:00.008Z

Nearly four and a half thousand years ago, a great six-tiered mountain of chalk was being slowly raised among the green downlands of southern Britain. Hundreds of men, women and children laboured day after day to complete their task, and when it was finished their mountain stood gleaming white, a symmetrical island set in a sea of gently rolling hills. It stood taller, larger and prouder than anything else man had ever built before in Europe.

High above, on a nearby track known as the Ridgeway (itself perhaps the oldest road in Europe), this six-tiered mountain of chalk must have presented a truly awesome sight to the warriors, pilgrims and other travellers who ploughed their way back and forth along that ancient highway to what was then, surely, the centre of prehistoric Britain.Contemporary with the Pyramids, larger than St Paul's Cathedral and containing more than twelve million cubic feet of chalk and rubble (all hewn by hand with no more than antler picks and shovels), that mountain still stands today fast and proud, a testimony to the skill and dedication of its builders. Today it is known simply as Silbury Hill, a silent and mysterious monument set on a quiet valley floor a few kilometres south of the great stone circle of Avebury in Wiltshire, England and less than 30 kilometres from its more famous grandchild, Stonehenge (both Avebury and Stonehenge are World Heritage Sites).

For many, their first glimpse of Silbury Hill is from the old Roman road (now the A4) just as it would have been for travellers and Roman legions nearly two thousand years ago as they made their way between Cunetio (Mildenhall) and Aquae Sulis (Bath). It seems probable that Silbury was used by Roman surveyors as a geographical marker for their road to and from Bath and there is geophysical evidence of a substantial Roman settlement between Silbury Hill and the Swallowhead Spring. At Silbury however, perhaps as a mark of respect for the structure and its ancient builders, the Roman road veers slightly round the structure rather than cutting through it. Travelling by road today Silbury looms out at you as you pass by and there is hardly time to take it in. A small carpark just off the A4 is one of the closest points from which one can view Silbury and parts of its manmade valley floor. From this official viewing area one can gain some idea of the sheer mass of the structure. At the edge of the viewing area there are explanations of Silbury's history, construction and condition set there on plaques by its present guardians, English Heritage.

The Silbury carpark however is not the only place from which to see this astonishing structure, in fact the further one travels from it the more one is able to understand its unique place in the surrounding landscape and to appreciate how beautifully it sits within that landscape.

But what is it? What was it used for? Perhaps, most of all, what's inside? These are questions that have niggled away at antiquarians, archaeologists, gravediggers, treasure hunters and, more recently, television crews for several centuries. Beginning with the so-called Dax Shaft of 1776 several tunnels have been dug into Silbury in an attempt to discover its secrets. This, and subsequent excavations have revealed remarkably little - little that is in material remains. Numerous theories have been, and continue to be, advanced as to the meaning of Silbury but in the end we may never know for sure what it stood for. Silbury does not seem to be a burial mound. It appears to contain no tomb and certainly no gold or silver; no treasure at all except for the few archaeological treasures from its earliest stages - that is to say plant and animal remains, 'rope' and small sarsen boulders.

Whatever Silbury was intended for its sparse contents seem unable to provide the answer. Perhaps the Silbury Secret lies not within it but without; in its beautifully proportioned size and shape, and in something far more intangible - something that many sense when they first see it, and which pulls them back again and again - like some great beacon in the night.

For our dedicated blog on Silbury Hill see -

http://silbury-hill.blogspot.com/

Silbury Hill: Wiltshire, England. Image credit Robert M Williams

2009-01-27T18:31:00.005Z

Avebury: New housing developments

2009-01-17T09:23:00.010Z

On the 7 January 2008 the Daily Telegraph quoted Jennifer Baldry (chairman of the parish council) as saying, "This site has been a problem site for some time. It is run down and scruffy and five smart houses would look far better than what's there at present."*
The Telegraph was reporting on plans to demolish the Bonds Garage, situated at the northern edge of the Avebury Henge, and build five new houses there. It is true that the site was scruffy, but for someone who has lived all her life in Avebury I'm surprised Ms Baldry was unable to see the difference between the site, with its intrusive second-hand vans parked outside, and the Bonds Garage building itself.

Bonds Garage (formerly Rawlins' Garage) was actually a 1930s Art Deco building commissioned by Alexander Keiller. The building had a certain charm about it, and on closer inspection one could see the 'Egyptian' Art Deco elements incorporated into its façade. Some may think the building itself was also scruffy, but if it was it was because it had been allowed to become so. The fact of the matter is that the building was, and always had been, an integral part of the Keiller Heritage, with considerable potential for use as something else - something much more valuable to the international community than five 'smart' new houses.
For many, Keiller's Garage would have made an excellent Alexander Keiller Museum (instead of the present pokey, one-room Keiller Museum at the back of the National Trust shop). With a little creative thinking it could also have functioned as an information centre, with an area providing views of both the Avebury Henge and Windmill Hill. A path leading to the north-east quadrant of the circle might also have been laid.

Too late now, the Alexander Keiller Garage has been demolished, and is to be replaced by 'five smart houses'. I hope Ms Baldry is right about these houses being smart (not to mention unobtrusive). Many visitors to Avebury, however, would have liked to have seen the Keiller Garage placed under a protection order as a tangible reminder of Avebury's more modern history and Alexander Keiller's legacy there. The building could have been easily renovated and put to some better use than the five 'smart' new houses - not to mention what seems likely to be the thin end of a larger housing estate wedge inserted on the very doorstep of this World Heritage Site. Sadly, I fear the words of William Stukeley will yet again ring as true today as they did some two and a half centuries ago, and the 'stupendous fabric' of Avebury will once more fall foul to the, "...wretched ignorance and avarice of a little village unluckily plac'd within it."

For a detailed discussion of what went wrong with the planning application at the Bonds Garage site please see -

http://www.northstoke.blogspot.com/ (14 January 2009 feature).

*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3320702/Storm-over-house-plan-for-ancient-monument.html

The north-east quadrant of the Avebury Henge from the Bonds Garage housing development

2009-01-17T09:17:00.005Z

Image credit Heritage Action

The Avenue of Horse Chestnuts

2009-01-14T08:31:00.015Z

The avenue of horse chestnuts, shown in the photo of the Cove above, is to be cut down, reports the Wiltshire Gazette and Herald.

"A tree disease which is spreading through the South West of England has infected an avenue of Horse Chestnuts at Avebury, leaving the National Trust with little choice but to remove it.
"The avenue which runs along the A4361, north of the Avebury stones was planted by Alexander Keiller in 1937. He was the archaeologist and businessman who founded the Alexander Keiller Museum at the World Heritage Site. Today the southern end of the avenue is owned by the National Trust, the rest by a local landowner."

Full article here -
http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/4044495.Avebury_trees_for_the_chop/

Christianised sites in the Avebury area. Part II

2009-01-12T11:18:00.002Z

There is evidence that some Christian sites in Britain and Ireland have been in continuous use as sacred meeting places from before the Roman occupation. Such sites may have started with people meeting in groves, or close to springs, ponds and other water courses. The remains of a stone circle, either near or actually beneath the church itself, are sometimes found at such sites. Often an Anglo-Saxon, and then a Norman church, were built on these older pre-Christian sites. The churches at Alton Priors, Cliffe Pypard, Pewsey and Winterbourne Monkton, to name but a few within the Avebury area, appear to be examples of this continuity.
This feature on the Winterbourne and Christianised sites within the Avebury area is under construction. Meanwhile please see the November 20, 2008 feature in Thelma Wilcox's Poems, paintings and photos blog here -
http://thelmawilcox.blogspot.com/2008/11/winterbourne-monkton.html

The Winterbourne, on the final lap of its course towards Silbury

2009-01-08T16:53:00.002Z

Where the Winterbourne and the Swallowhead become the Kennet. William Stukeley. 13 May 1724

2009-01-07T19:32:00.015Z

The Winterbourne (centre) meets the Swallowhead Spring (far left) where it becomes the Kennet (foreground). The is an Egyptian word 'Kehmet' which refers to the black, fertile lands that resulted from the annual flooding of the Nile. Each year massive quantities of black silt were brought down from Ethiopia and the African interior resulting in Egypt's continuous fertility. Michael Dames, in his book The Silbury Treasure (ISBN 0-500-27140-2) examines the etymology of the word Kennet. He writes on page 110 -

Cunnit is Cunnt with an extra i. As late as 1740, the peasants of the district had not abandoned the nomenclature, and the old name was in use all down the river to Hungerford, in 1723. The Roman riverside settlement called Cunetio - their principal town in the entire Kennet valley.

It is only too easy to draw parallels between the words Kehmet and Kennet, not to mention other words in the family of Indo-European languages with similar sounds and symbolism, but with the great 'pyramid' of Silbury sitting only a stone's throw from both the Swallowhead Spring and the River Kennet, perhaps it is also a mistake to dismiss out-of-hand that there was ever any connection between the two cultures of ancient Britain and ancient Egypt. There was, after all, the small but thriving Roman town at the base of Silbury some two thousand years ago, and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that there may have been an exchange of peoples and ideas between Britain and Egypt some two thousand years prior to that date.

Christ Church, East Kennet

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One of several sarsens in front of Christ Church, East Kennet

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Where there are stones there often seems to be a nearby spring or well and/or a river. In the Avebury/Silbury area there are eight churches close to the course of the Winterbourne and Kennet, several with what appear to be un-worked stones in their foundations. The same also at nearby Alton Priors, Clyffe Pypard, Pewsey and, in Essex, at Alphamstone and The Church of St Mary with St Leonard, Broomfield, Chelmsford. See -

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/11391/church_of_st_mary_with_st_leonard_broomfield.html

At East Kennet, "There was a church on the same site as the present one in the 12th century... local poverty and negligence on the part of the owner... resulted in reports in the 16th and 17th centuries of the decay of the church fabric, and by the 19th century the church had become dilapidated." (from the church information sheet).

It seems the old church was completely demolished in the 19th century and then a new one built in the Early English style. That might account for there being nothing of megalithic interest in the church foundations. However, the site does have a 'pre-Christian feel' to it. The church is built on a slight mound. There's a yew tree in its churchyard (about as old as the one at Alton Barns) and a pond on the outside of the churchyard wall with one large sarsen (maybe two sarsens as there's something completely covered with ivy) at the pond's edge. There's also another large sarsen in a nearby garden and a heap of broken sarsens by the northern wall of the churchyard. The original church may have been built within a circle not on it.

Church of St Nicholas, Fyfield

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Perhaps the last church along the course of the Kennet still exhibiting pre-Christian remains. Under several of the church buttresses large sarsens are to be found, while in the church walls themselves a few Roman tiles.

The Church of St Nicholas: Fyfield Down and Fyfield Church. A guest feature by Thelma Wilcox

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Fyfield Down is famous for the 'Celtic field system' still lightly sketched across the landscape. These prehistoric and Roman field boundaries form a lattice across the hillside. There is the possibility that the Roman field boundaries were still in use into the later Saxon era, and that the formation of Fyfield (its boundaries resemble a triangle), with its apex high on the Marlborough Downs at Hackpen Hill. It is believed that Fyfield may have been a villa-estate in the late Roman period. This evidence is deduced on late 19th finds near Fyfield village. The evidence of the Roman road not following the modern A4 but taking its path from North Farm following a curve from 'Piggledene' sarsen stream, down Piper Lane, and probably somewhere near Fyfield Church. According to a report by Gillian Swanton, the road is not the customary agger type but 'a sequence of road structures continues eastwards the line of the A4 from North Farm' and that this road is thought to be a sarsen road.

Avebury: No! To a new housing development at this World Heritage Site

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Avebury: A new housing development

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Nearly one year ago Heritage Action reported on the proposal to build five new houses on the former Bonds Garage site just outside the north-east quadrant of the Avebury Henge -

http://www.heritageaction.org/?page=theheritagejournal&id=180
Apart from demolishing the garage little has happened since then. Recently, however, Heritage Action has learnt that construction of the houses is soon to commence and a large photograph of what the houses will look like has now appeared on the housing development's hoarding. Heritage Action is vehemently opposed to the building of these new houses so close (less than a hundred metres) to this World Heritage Site and believes that planning permission for their construction should be revoked.
This feature first appeared in The Heritage Action Journal -

http://www.heritageaction.org/?page=theheritagejournal and is reproduced here with Heritage Action's kind permission.

The New Inn, Winterbourne Monkton

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Accommodation: The New Inn, Winterbourne Monkton

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The New Inn - http://www.thenewinn.net/ at Winterbourne Monkton is the third closest pub (after the Waggon and Horses at Beckhampton) to Avebury and is within walking distance of the stone circle. There is also a bus service to and from Avebury with the bus stop located close to the road leading to the hamlet of Winterbourne Monkton. The New Inn also offers B&B accommodation in one of its five bedrooms, though at around £50 for a single room and £60 for a double or twin room this is a little pricy when compared to some other B&Bs in the area, not to mention the Swindon Marriott (see below) whose rates, which often include a superb buffet breakfast, can be as low £42 per night for a twin or double bedroom.

Teacher's Cottage

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Accommodation: Teacher's Cottage

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Teacher's Cottage -

http://www.teacherscottage.co.uk/index.html is situated in Avebury High Street, and directly opposite the Church of St James. The upstairs (south-facing) bedroom has one double bed and the front (north-facing) bedroom has two single beds. The front bedroom has a wonderful view of the church. Downstairs there's a large, well equipped kitchen at the back of the cottage. The downstairs bathroom is a bit cramped but functional. There's a small dining room in the middle of the cottage and a lovely little lounge at the front. The lounge has an open fireplace that can be used in winter. At the back of Teacher's Cottage there's a small yard with tables and chairs.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of Teacher's Cottage is being able to get up early and go out into the heart of Avebury - no people and hardly any traffic.

The Devizes Travelodge. Image credit Willow

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Accommodation: The Devizes Travelodge

2009-01-03T13:45:00.003Z

The Devizes Travelodge -

http://www.travelodge.co.uk/search_and_book/hotel_overview.php?hotel_id=383 opened at the end of 2008. Devizes is only about fifteen minutes drive from Avebury (there is also a good bus service) and the Travelodge chain offers some very cheap deals if you book in advance over the internet.

Avebury and The Secret Places of the Heart

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Wonderful indeed it is, a vast circumvallation that was already two thousand years old before the dawn of British history; a great wall of earth with its ditch most strangely on its inner and not on its outer side; and within this enclosure gigantic survivors of the great circles of unhewn stone that, even as late as Tudor days, were almost complete. A whole village, a church, a pretty manor house have been built, for the most part, out of the ancient megaliths; the great wall is sufficient to embrace them all with their gardens and paddocks; four cross-roads meet at the village centre. There are drawings of Avebury before these things arose there, when it was a lonely wonder on the plain, but for the most part the destruction was already done before the Mayflower sailed. To the southward stands the cone of Silbury Hill; its shadow creeps up and down the intervening meadows as the seasons change. Around this lonely place rise the Downs, now bare sheep pastures, in broad undulations, with a wart-like barrow here and there, and from it radiate, creeping up to gain and hold the crests of the hills, the abandoned trackways of that forgotten world. These trackways, these green roads of England, these roads already disused when the Romans made their highway past Silbury Hill to Bath, can still be traced for scores of miles through the land, running to Salisbury and the English Channel, eastward to the crossing at the Straits and westward to Wales, to ferries over the Severn, and southwestward into Devon and Cornwall.

H G Wells (1866-1946)

Within this enclosure gigantic survivors

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Avebury and Alexander Keiller

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Alexander Keiller (1889-1955) was, more than anyone else, instrumental in restoring parts of the now world-famous Neolithic complex at Avebury. Keiller undertook his work at Avebury during the 1920s and 1930s and, although his restoration of parts the Henge has since been criticised by some less dedicated to his vision of a restored Avebury, it is Keiller we should thank for restoring much of the Henge as we see it today.

During his time at Avebury Keiller dedicated a considerable amount of his time, energy and fortune removing the many disfiguring buildings and detritus that had accumulated in and around the village (see photo below of the Cove before his restoration and the snow-bound wonder above as it appears today). The detritus, and the now almost unbelievable disregard for this treasure from our distant past, were suffocating and threatening to totally destroy what has now rightly become (due mainly to Keiller's vision) a World Heritage Site visited by thousands each year.
Apart from removing much of this detritus and re-erecting some of its fallen stones (many other stones still, sadly, remain fallen and visible above ground while others lay hidden below it) Keiller also undertook excavations in and around Avebury. The small but fascinating museum by the church in Avebury displays many of Keiller's finds from the area and the museum still bears the name of the Alexander Keiller Museum.

The Avebury Cove before Alexander Keiller's restorations of the 1920s and 1930s

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Restoration: A guest feature by Ric Kemp

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The 17th century Nonconformist chapel in Green Street is part of Avebury's material and spiritual history, but I believe age has seniority. For me that puts Neolithic Avebury first in any consideration for historical restoration - a compromise might have been a 'glass floor' or something similar, inserted into the chapel/tourist information centre, highlighting socket holes and anything else which came to light during the restoration: as it is, the original structure here, namely the South Inner Circle, has been basically ignored, apart from a perfunctory 'watching brief' and some archaeological note taking. With regard to the Obelisk - I do not believe that Avebury can function properly without it - it points out the seasons with their attendant ritual: depriving Avebury of its central monolith was a cruel thing to do, and some of the villagers appear to have stubbornly maintained its tradition with maypoles in its erstwhile shadow, which have left traces. I cannot see why a new Obelisk of local sarsen can't be quarried to replace the old one: we have Stukeley's excellent sketches and descriptions to go by; we have the socket hole marked out by Keiller; we have the burning pits dug out beneath the recumbent stone, to destroy it - so we have a lot of data for the reasonably accurate replication of this central standing stone.

William Stukeley's 1723 sketch of the Obelisk

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