Avebury Ave!

Yesterday I made a daytrip to Avebury, to admire
and investigate its ancient features.
Here's a good link about it all:
http://www.stonehenge-avebury.net/aburybuilding.html

Primarily at Avebury one thinks of its stone circle...
best appreciated by walking around it, or failing that
from arial photos such as this from Google Earth..

On the ground the stones grab the attention...





But the ditch around the outside of the circle
is just as impressive in its way...

I liked the textures of the stones, this one with
accompanying lichen growth...

and this without.

Stretching away from the Avebury ring
is the West Kennet Avenue, believed
to be a ritual walkway of some kind.



and running out into the chalky downland,

towards what would once have been another impressive
circular structure now marked out with modern stone markers:
interesting to see, but not easily illustrated with
a photo (sorry about that).

Around about in nearby fields Round Barrows
abound....

some of which can be spotted for miles around
due to the clump of beech trees growing on them!



Such spots seemed a particular draw to those
of a pagan persuasion and this one at least
had a little makeshift shrine on its "summit".
Was the draw here worship of the trees? or worship
of the ancestors entombed here? (if the later it seems
a little arbitary. What about those in the tombs not
so lucky to have trees on, or those in barrows long
ploughed over?) I thought the plastic sunflower "planted"
at another location was pushing the whimsy just
a tad far....

Fortunately no-one got around to ploughing
over this other major feature hereabouts....the West Kennet
Long Barrow. You may think Hetty Pegglars Tump
is impressive, but that's peanuts compared to this one!!

Big, impressive "doorway"

into cavenous interior with plenty of
headroom

and even substantial side chambers. Splendidly evocative.

One last site to behold as I walked back towards
Avebury (and my car) was the massive artifical
Silbury hill. To get a sense of scale, note the white
van/lorry passing by. Big! Lets hope the fears
of it collapsing are unfounded!