|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
Avebury
|
|
(10m/6km W of Marlborough) One of the largest and most important Stone Age monuments in Europe, probably created some time before 2000 BC. A great bank of chalk and an inner ditch, from which most of the material came, enclose 11.5ha/28.5ac including the village of Avebury. Just inside the ditch there was a ring of about 100 vast standing stones, many of them still upright today, and inside that ring are the remains of two smaller circles. The stones (or sarsens), up to 50 tons in weight, are of sandstone from the local North Wessex *Downs.
|
|
|
|
The scale of the operation caused the first serious student of Avebury, John Aubrey, to write that it as much surpasses *Stonehenge 'as a cathedral doth a parish church'. A processional route of paired stones, known as the West Kennet Avenue and now partly restored, stretched about 2km/1m southwards, ending at a double circle of stones (the Sanctuary) which was destroyed in the 18C. The equally ancient *Silbury Hill is nearby.
|
|
|
|