We had no intention of visiting Avebury during our fairly recent trip down to the south west of England, but when we saw a roadsign which indicated we were staying just seven miles from Avebury we obvioulsy had to go there. You don’t have to pay to get into the fields but if you are parking a car then you pay for parking, I think it was £7, however – if you are a member of the National Trust or Scottish National Trust parking is free. Below is a photo of Jack beside one of the standing stones so you can see how enormous some are.
We’ve been to visit a fair few standing stones but none as massive as these ones. They’re also very rough and don’t seem to have been worn down by the weather. I was also struck by the difference in the situations in the landscape. In Orkney you can stand in one of the neolithic stone sites and see two others in the distance, but in Avebury it seems that they wanted things to be hidden. Massive ditches have been dug out around the fields, it looks like that might have been done to keep people in those fields, escape wouldn’t have been easy, probably impossible. You don’t really get the idea of how deep this ditch/rampart is from the photo below.
For me that added to an atmosphere of unease and danger. This could of course be my imagination running rampant!
But I must admit that when I saw a few women leaning against the stones with both hands – for ages, emulating Claire from Outlander, obviously hoping for a similar experience, I found it really funny.
Otherwise, Avebury is a lovely wee village with a few shops, pub and church.
And some very quaint houses.
