A guest post by Peter Norton. Avebury is 33 miles from Salisbury SN8 1RF, a sweeping partial avenue of erect stones, missed by many who just visit the Avebury complex. It is roughly a 2 mile walk with parking at the Avebury National Trust car park covering the length of the Avenue and back. The West Kennet Avenue connects the south entrance of the Avebury Henge to the Sanctuary one and a half miles away on Overton Hill. The Avenue is thought to have been constructed around 2400 BC.   [caption id="attachment_4966" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Spring with Waden Hill in the background to the west.[/caption]   It is believed to have consisted of about 100 pairs of stones spaced at intervals of 80 feet, with the ... Read More

A guest post by Peter Norton. Avebury is 33 miles from Salisbury SN8 1RF, a sweeping partial avenue of erect stones, missed by many who just visit the Avebury complex. It is roughly a 2 mile walk with parking at the Avebury National Trust car ... Read More

'The great old mound, with its grey time stained stones, among which bushes of the blackthorn maintain a stunted growth, commanding as it does a view of the great part of the sacred site of Avebury, has still a charm in its wild solitude, disturbed only by the tinkling of the sheep bell, or perhaps the cry of the hounds. Shade too, is not wanting; for on the north side of the barrow, occupying the place once filled by the encircling upright stones, are, what are rarely seen on these downs, several ash and elm trees, of fifty to seventy years growth. At the foot of the hill, half a mile away to the east, lies one of those long combs or valleys, where the ... Read More

'The great old mound, with its grey time stained stones, among which bushes of the blackthorn maintain a stunted growth, commanding as it does a view of the great part of the sacred site of Avebury, has still a charm in its wild solitude, disturbed ... Read More

Seventeen years ago today at approximately 12 noon on 29 May 2000, after heavy rains, a collapse of the 1776 excavation shaft was discovered on the summit of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. Hugh Percy, Duke of Northumberland, financially supported an excavation in 1776 by Colonel Edward Drax, who used a team of miners from the Mendip Hills in Somerset to excavate a vertical shaft from the top of the mound, but no clear records of this excavation exist. (Brian Edwards's 2010 article published in Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, ‘Silbury Hill, Edward Drax, and the 1776 Excavations’, is here). There is, however, a reference in 1793 by Revd. James Douglas in Nenia Brittannica stating ‘The only relic found at the bottom, and which Colonel Drax showed me, ... Read More

Seventeen years ago today at approximately 12 noon on 29 May 2000, after heavy rains, a collapse of the 1776 excavation shaft was discovered on the summit of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. Hugh Percy, Duke of Northumberland, financially supported an excavation in 1776 by Colonel Edward ... Read More