Prehistoric Avebury

Avebury is less than twenty miles from perhaps Europe’s greatest prehistoric monument, Stonehenge, and at first thought a visit to its prehistoric sites might seem a little too much ancient history for one day. Don’t give up on it though. Most visitors to Avebury find it much less touristy than Stonehenge, plus there’s also a lot more freedom to wander, and (arguably) a lot more to see. In short, if you’re in the area and you miss a visit to Avebury, you’re missing out.

Nearly all the myriad Stonehenge day trips from London include several hours exploring Avebury’s main sites. If you visit the area under your own steam, try to allow half a day to see the village and surroundings in a little more depth.

Apart from the prehistoric marvels, the surrounding countryside is fantastic for walking, and there’s even a fine old English pub in the village, which (as the establishment itself is quick to point out) has a unique position, inside the stone circle. The food is surprisingly good (and reasonably priced) for such a touristy place, and the building has loads of character. Look out in the bar lounge for the old village well, 86 feet deep, glassed over and now doubling as a table. The well even has its own resident ghost called Florrie.

Apparently, the unfortunate Florrie was caught locked in the arms of another man by her husband, who was returning from fighting in the English Civil War (1642-49).

Not the kind of reunion he was hoping for!

Anyway, the unfortunate man was so enraged he threw the poor lady into the well, which is haunted by her spirit to this day. Apparently either Florrie’s husband or her lover had a beard, which explains why present-day visitors with facial hair have been known to draw her ghostly attentions!

Patrons of the pub can park in the adjacent car park. To explore the area’s prehistoric and natural attractions though, move on to the large National Trust car park, clearly signposted a few hundred yards away, down the Devizes road.

Getting your bearings

Avebury village is almost completely encircled by its huge stone circle and the accompanying earthwork and ditch, known as Avebury Henge. The roads connecting the village with the surrounding region conveniently divide both into four roughly equal quarters, or quadrants as they’re usually called. From the National Trust car park, a short footpath leads to the village’s main street, right beside the entrance to the southwest quadrant.

If you’re serious about getting the most out of this magical place, it’s worth preparing beforehand by getting (and reading) a copy of Exploring Avebury by Steve Marshall (on sale for just a tenner or so at Amazon). You can also get online and explore this extraordinarily detailed website. Both sources have maps of the village and its prehistoric sites. Walkers intent on combining a visit to the sites with a walk over the magnificent surrounding downs should pick up a copy of OS Map 157. The gift shops in the village sell both books and maps, or you can just arrive and wander. All the important (and not-so-important) sites are clearly signposted, and a network of pubic and permissive footpaths mean you can visit all the area’s sites without having to walk more than very short distances along any road.

If you're interested in finding out a little about the more esoteric aspects of Avebury (including its reputed relationship with the Great Pyramids and the stars, and the significance at the site of the numbers 27, 29 and 99, among much more!), read Avebury by Evelyn Francis (published by Wooden Books). It's a tiny tome which can be read in less than an hour, but is packed with extraordinary, sometimes slightly weird info about the site.

The Stone Circle(s) and Henge

As the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world, everyone comes to Avebury to see this, and as you arrive you can’t miss it! Arriving from the north, the Swindon Stone, part of the northwest quadrant of the circle, stands imposingly right on the edge of the road. A few meters further (opposite the pub) the huge twin stones of The Cove are conspicuous in the field on the left.

All four quadrants of the stone circle and accompanying henge are accessible by path. A circuit takes nearly half an hour at a leisurely pace. If time is limited, the southwest quadrant has the finest collection of standing stones, and the southeast quadrant has by far the most impressive remaining stretch of henge earthworks.

There were in fact two smaller stone circles contained within the large one, but today only a couple of rocks remain of each.

West Kennet Avenue

Follow the path through the SW quadrant of the stone circle, cross the road and walk through the gate into the SE quadrant, passing the only surviving stones in this part of the circle – the larger is called the Devil’s Chair (you’ll likely see visitors getting their photos sitting in the supposedly natural ledge in this great block of rock). Just after the rock, go through the gate on the right, re-cross the road and go through a gate opposite to the start of the West Kennet Avenue, which once stretched for over a mile. Only a portion of the two rows of tall, pointed rocky sentinels remain, but it’s still an impressive place.

In about ten minutes, at the end of the remaining stretch of the Avenue, join the road on the left. A signpost points right over Waden Hill towards Silbury Hill (described below), and in the opposite direction, across the road, another signpost points down a track to Falkner's Circle (photo below).

About 200 meters along it, half hidden behind the tall hedge on the left is the sole remaining monolith of Falkner’s Circle, which comprised about twelve huge stones before the remainder were (like so many of the standing stones at Avebury) destroyed or carted off for use elsewhere.

Another signpost points the way along a footpath beside the road southeast towards The Sanctuary (above) a mile or so further. This is the most severely damaged of all Avebury’s prehistoric sites. In fact, none of the rocks of this once very elaborate shrine remain, and all that can be seen are rings of small, colour-coded concrete blocks marking the position of the original stone and wooden blocks. It’s hard to imagine what this place must have been like once, but the artist’s impression on the info board on the site gives some idea. A permissive path from the Sanctuary heads towards West Kennet Long Burrow, shortening the unpleasant walk along the fast and busy A4.

Silbury Hill

The largest artificial hill in Europe, Silbury Hill is probably prehistoric Avebury’s most mysterious monument. It’s truly ancient, at about 4,500 years old (which makes it the same age as the Great Pyramids), and it’s huge too: this almost perfectly circular conical mound is 130 feet in height and about five acres in area, yet it lies in one of the lowest, least prominent positions in the area, and can’t be seen from most of Avebury’s other prehistoric sites. Why was such a huge project undertaken in such an odd, inconspicuous location? No one really knows. Today it’s hard to miss Silbury Hill if you’re driving along the busy A4 highway, which passes right beneath it.

There’s a useful car park beside the A4 just west of the hill, but by far the best way to see the hill for the first time is from the far (SE) end of West Kennet Avenue. Take the signposted path uphill, and at the crest of the ridge, the hill suddenly and dramatically appears below.

Continue ahead downhill to its base, and turn left along the edge of the field, coming out on the road opposite the trailhead for West Kennet Long Barrow.

West Kennet Long Barrow

One of the finest prehistoric burial chambers in Britain, WKLB (as it’s usually abbreviated) is also one of the most atmospheric, and one of the few that the public can enter. Cars can be parked in two laybys close to the trailhead, on the A4 a couple of hundred meters east of Silbury Hill. Follow the signposted path through the gate, cross the stream, turn left and then branch immediately right, uphill through the field to the barrow atop the low ridge in front. The barrow, 104 meters long (one of the longest in Britain) is mostly solid dirt, but at the eastern end, a portal of impressively large rocks leads to a branched passage about ten meters long, lined with huge rocks.

It’s a fascinating and atmospheric place. If you find this place fascinating, try to visit the far larger and longer passages at Newgrange (near Dublin, Ireland) or La Hougue Bie (Jersey, Channel Islands) too, surely the two finest and most awe-inspiring prehistoric monuments in the British Isles.

At the foot of the hill below WKLB, Swallowhead Springs is the largest and best-known of several springs that rise near the foot of Silbury Hill, and is considered an important site for New Age kinds and modern Druids. At the very start of the path from the road to the long barrow, pass through the gate, and head diagonally right, across the field to the farthest corner, aiming for a wooded area, where a stile gives access over the fence to the spring, a set of stepping stones made of huge boulders crossing the infant stream below the spring, and a willow tree arching over the spring.

To get back to the National Trust car park on foot, take the footpath across the road back round the base of Silbury Hill, and at the junction continue straight ahead for another ten minutes. When the path meets a road, the car park is right opposite.

Longstones (Adam and Eve)

Until the great destruction of the 1700s, many of Avebury’s standing stone monuments and earthworks were largely intact, over 4000 years after they were created. Then, in the space of a few decades, much of the area’s prehistoric heritage was destroyed, demolished, or carted off by farmers to build houses and walls. Restoration work during the 1930s saw the resurrection of the demolished WKLB and the re-erection of felled stones in the great stone circle, West Kennet Avenue, and elsewhere. Sadly though, almost nothing remained of the latter’s western counterpart, a similar ritual route of standing stones about a mile long, leading to the stone circle from the west. Today just two huge monoliths (called the Longstones, or Adam and Eve) remain. They once formed part of the western entrance to the avenue. To get there follow the route of the signposted Wessex Ridgeway west from Avebury church.

In the next field west from the Longstones is Beckhampton Long Barrow (below), one of the oldest sites at Avebury, at almost 5,000 years old.

Today it’s just a lozenge-shaped mound in the grass, but a very big and impressive one.

Windmill Hill

Nearly two miles northwest of Avebury, reached by an attractive (signposted) footpath across the fields from the western end of the village, are the earthworks of Windmill Hill, the earliest surviving remains at Avebury, dating back to about 3700 B.C. There’s not a great deal to see on this low, gentle hill: the main features are a conspicuous circular burrow and some indistinct earthworks. There’s a lovely view from the top though, and if you walk out here you’ll likely have the hill to yourself!