8 miles Avebury

This figure of eight walk will be an exploration of the Avebury archaeological area. We will visit five of the dramatic prehistoric sites around Avebury. The morning walk is from Avebury to Silbury Hill and to the West Kennet long barrow, where we will have a coffee stop. We return to Avebury via the West Kennet prehistoric stone avenue. In the afternoon we climb Windmill Hill and return via the White Horse Trail to Avebury. Most of the walking is in open downland, with lovely scenery and spectacular archaeology. The going is mostly easy, but we climb a couple of gentle hills and in the afternoon have to navigate five stiles.

If anyone wants to walk in the morning only, there is lots to do in the afternoon at Avebury itself, exploring the stone circles and the henge and visiting Avebury Manor and the Alexander Keiller Museum.

Start: We start at 10.30 from the National Trust car park on Beckhampton Road, Avebury (SN8 1RD; SU099698; what3words: ///trade.engraving.teacher).

The car park is free to National Trust members so remember to take your card if you are   member.

There are toilets in the Old Farmyard which is 10 minutes’ walk from the car park. Ladies! I recommend using these as the morning walk offers little cover for comfort stops.
Distance: Morning 4 ½ miles; afternoon 3 ½ miles

Driving: Avebury is 45 miles from Winchester and driving time is about 1 hour and 20 minutes. The quickest route from Winchester is via the A34 and the A4; there are shorter routes cross-country.

Public transport:  (not much use from Winchester) Stagecoach Bus 49 (between Swindon, Devizes and Trowbridge) serves Avebury twice an hour. The Swindon Bus Company No. 42 bus service between Calne and Marlborough also goes via Avebury (but check timetable with the Swindon Bus Company).

Lunch: Circles Café in the Old Farmyard serves soup of the day, a range of light lunches, pastries, cakes as well as tea, coffee, wine and beer. The café choices are rather limited so this could be a good day to bring a picnic. There are many nice places to picnic, complete with tables and chairs, including inside if wet.

We do not have to order lunch but please let me know if you would like lunch in the café so that I can give them numbers.

Dogs are welcome but will have to be on a lead for parts of the walk.

Archaeological sites in the Avebury area:

 John Aubrey, the 17th century antiquarian, wrote “Avebury surpasses Stonehenge as a Cathedral doth a Parish Church”

West Kennet chambered tomb and long barrow

A burial mound with a chamber made up of sarsen stones (glacial erratics) collected from nearby Downs. It is the earliest known structure in the area: the tomb was built in about 3650 BC. Remains of 46 people were buried inside with grave goods including pottery, beads and a stone dagger. The chamber was blocked with huge stones sometime after 2000 BC.

Windmill Hill

An Early Neolithic enclosure made up of three concentric rings of ditches and low banks. It was a meeting place for the people who lived in the area. It is the largest of the c70 known Early Neolithic enclosures. It was begun in about 3675 BC, just after West Kennet, and it remained in use until around 2500 BC. Excavations in the 1930s found pottery, flint tools, antler picks for digging the ditches, human bones and animal bones from feasting and from animal sacrifices. In the Bronze Age four barrows (burial mounds) were built on the hill.

Avebury Henge and stone circle

The henge (a ditch with an external bank) is the most massive henge in Britain. Henges are circular structures of ditches with external banks, usually with four entrances. Avebury was built between about 3000-2600 BC. The stone circle is the largest in England. It consists of 98 stones inside the henge. They were erected after the ditches and banks using sarsen stones still in their natural shapes. Several smaller circles of stone and wooden uprights were also constructed inside the henge.

Silbury Hill

This huge mound is the largest prehistoric structure in Britain. The interior has been explored using bores and tunneling so we know the radiocarbon date when it was started (2460BC onwards) and we know that it was not built to cover burials. It is located at a springhead, so is sometimes surrounded by water.

West Kennet Avenue

A processional avenue of unmodified sarsen stones was constructed from the west entrance after the henge was built. A second avenue was built from the south entrance, but its stones were all broken up and reused – as in the construction of the 17th century barn in the Old Farmyard.