The Marlborough Downs ( say it Mawl-burrah) is home to a huge population of Neolithic settlement activity. The sites are connected around the Ridgeway , a long distance path stretching 85 miles. Along the way the walker will find white chalk horses, ancient long barrows, mysterious underground rooms, remnants of old forts and a sense that you’re following a journey that thousands have followed before you. The Ridgeway has been used for 5000 years by many different groups of people from Bronze Age tribes, to Romans, Vikings, medieval drovers, travelers, farmers, and armies. It is the oldest road in Britain.
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| This Chalk Horse is Only From the 1780's |
Not far from the Ridgeway, Avebury is the largest known standing stone ring in the world. Built around 2500BC it's older than the more famous Stonehenge, and for many people far more spectacular. Like Stonehenge, the multiple rings of Avebury are cloaked with mysteries and questions. Why? Who? How?
Photos can't do it justice since the size and mass of these stones placed within huge banks and ditches can't be communicated. You just have to put it on your bucket list and see it. Avebury is calmer and more accessible than Stonehenge. The whole area is in and around a beautiful village and can be easily viewed on foot. You're free to wander among the stones, contemplating, being awed and looking for the power that's said to emanate from them. To our ancestors the Earth was alive and emitted invisible lines of force and energy patterns. Just what these stone circles represent to them may never be known.
Just think of what the construction efforts the Avebury complex must have required on the part of the local inhabitants. The planning, the execution. simple people with a huge goal and accomplishment. Who were they? What does all this mean?
The Barber's Stone was named after a skeleton that was unearthed underneath it, along with a pair of scissors, a small iron lancet ( surgical knife) and 3 silver coins dating from the early 14C. He was thought o be a medieval barber/surgeon who was crushed under the stone.
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| Online Aerial View From the National Trust Site |
It's believed that Avebury, as a temple, was part of a vast network of Neolithic sacred sites arranged along a nearly two-hundred mile energy emitting line stretching all across southern England. The Marlborough Downs area is dotted with such sites. Also positioned directly on this line are the great much later pilgrimage sites of Glastonbury Tor and St. Michael's Mount. The megalithic complex spans over three miles. It's believed the location of Avebury was not arbitrarily placed, but due to the phenomenal ley lines and earth energy patterns that were present.
In 1925, a man named Alfred Watkins rediscovered Britain’s ancient ley network and published his findings in a book called "The Old Straight Track". He noted that straight lines, sometimes old tracks and pathways, formed linear alignments across the countryside and that ancient man-made structures were sited upon them, such as tumuli (burial mounds), long barrows ( burial chambers), stone circles, and standing stones.
Or maybe it's aliens. It's suggested the stones are identical to ones on Mars and are arranged in the same formation.
Not far from the main Avebury rings stands Silbury Hill, the largest, and maybe the most enigmatic, of all megalithic constructions in Europe. It stands at 130 feet high and covers 5 acres. It's really less of an ant hill and more of a wedding cake. The uppermost part was built as a series of drums each getting progressively smaller in diameter with increasing height. Each drum has the outer wall leaning in at an angle for stability. The inside of each drum consists of a series of radial walls similar to a spider's web which divide the drums into compartments each of which are filled with chalk the walls themselves having been built with chalk blocks.
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| Sheep For Scale |
Why did they pile up all this dirt?
It could be that the hill may have originally be constructed around some sort of totem pole.
Historians have uncovered letters written in 1776 that describe a 40ft-high pole which once stood at the center of Silbury Hill.
The letters detail an 18C excavation into the center of the man-made mound, where archaeologists discovered a long, thin cavity six inches wide and about 40ft deep.
A separate excavation found fragments of oak timber within the cavity leading historians to believe that the mound was built around the pole dating from around 2,400 BC. And it's still here sitting next to the A4 road.
Or maybe it's those pesky aliens.
The village of Avebury is interesting in its own right for many reasons. The brick and timber architecture, the Church of St James dates from 1000AD, renovated by the Anglo-Saxons and Normans. It has the remains of it's bell frame from 1636.
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| Bell Frame |
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| 1500's Dovecote |
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| 17C Tithe Barn |
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| Manor House, Property of the National Trust |
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| High Street Shopping |
Cardinal Wolsey was ordained priest in St. Peter's church in 1498. The town was sacked and burned following a fierce battle in 1642. There were 3 Great Fires: 1653, 1679 and in 1690.
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| Medieval Passageway |
History can wait for a ham omelette, Elderflower Pressee and the good people at Polly's on High St,
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| Polly Tea Shop |
It doesn't get more authentic than this. I love a good tea shop.
I have one word to end the day - Redemption.
I had to redeem myself after yesterday's map reading fiasco. What shame and indignity of this OS map veteran. There was only one remedy, to get back out there with a real map and make it right. And thats what I did.
A short 3-4 mile leg stretcher around the Manor House, farm fields and outlying Nettleton woods. And a very relaxing little walk it was! I will never use an online printed map again, and always have a map!
Redeemed!
Staring out at the Manor House ....
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| Sun! |
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| The By Brook |
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| Mom |
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| I Love Hidden Paths |
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| Another Bridge Over the By Brook Near the Motte and Bailey of the Old Castle |
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| Pretty Muddy Today But Part of the Fun |
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| Clapper Bridge Over the Broadmead BrookAlways a treat to come across when walking, this style of bridge is formed by large flat slabs of stone supported on stone piers or resting on the banks of streams. The word 'clapper' derives from the Anglo-Saxon word cleaca, meaning 'bridging the stepping stones' . Oh those Anglo-Saxons with a word for everything! Most of these bridges were erected in medieval times but are found also in later centuries. They are often situated close to a ford where carts could cross. |
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| Back to Town and a Pub Dinner at the White Hart |
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