Avebury Stone Circle

Hi,

i'd like to tell you about the Avebury Group at -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Avebury_uk_/

this group is formed around the idea that Avebury should be restored - a continuation of the visionary project begun by Alexander Keiller, in the 1930's

Avebury is a mysterious site - as are all stone circles - and i tried to convey a sense of this mystery in two short films:

1) Avebury [2002]

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=E0QtwqL994g


and


2) Ridgeway [2006]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQgYdJ5D7C4


the Ridgeway is an ancient track which passes close by to Avebury and Silbury Hill, which both appear in this film

bests



Ric

Avebury is one of my favorite places to visit when i go south, if you look on the mysterious britain main site there is a picture of one of the larger stones also shown in one of your films. And the Red Lion serves good food and ale, just a shame they made the well into a table and got rid of the bar biliard table. Still an awsome site to visit though, what other stone circle can boast that its big enough to have a village inside it.
I'm still a firm beliver in my theory that Silbury Hill was mainly built from the early excavations that form the henge at Avebury though.

On another note, i never knew the ridgeway was that close to Avebury, i always assumed it was further south, its one of my goals to ride my motorcycle across it, unless the various councils manage to stop all vehicular access to it that is.

LeeWat wrote:

Avebury is one of my favorite places to visit when i go south, if you look on the mysterious britain main site there is a picture of one of the larger stones also shown in one of your films.

yea! that's Stone 102 from the South Inner Circle

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And the Red Lion serves good food and ale, just a shame they made the well into a table and got rid of the bar biliard table.

supposed to be haunted - the well, i mean - not the billiards :-o

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Still an awsome site to visit though, what other stone circle can boast that its big enough to have a village inside it.
I'm still a firm beliver in my theory that Silbury Hill was mainly built from the early excavations that form the henge at Avebury though.

sounds reasonable to me, but i think Silbury also sits on a natural chalk spur, which would have assisted in its construction

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On another note, i never knew the ridgeway was that close to Avebury, i always assumed it was further south,

the Ridgeway passes to about 1 mile, east of the henge, where a path leads down to Avebury; but travelling south, the Ridgeway practically intersects with the 'Sanctuary' site, which terminates West Kennet Avenue; in the full film (20 minutes) the camera investigates the Sanctuary site

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its one of my goals to ride my motorcycle across it, unless the various councils manage to stop all vehicular access to it that is.

i like motorbikes - used to have one - but i am not a fan of engine vehicles on the Ridgeway, i have to admit; but 4x4's are the worst threat to the Ridgeway - motorbikes just scare the devil out of walkers, when they appear from behind a bend in the Ridgeway, and come roaring towards you, before you can stagger out of the way, over the treacherous ruts -




i walked sections of the Ridgeway between Alton Priors and the Uffington White Horse, in 2006. parts of the way were deeply rutted - 4x4's - almost to the extent of being impassable on foot - certainly dangerous: the ruts were the sort of depth and width to pull or twist a walker's ankle; i couldn't cover the stretch between Barbury Castle and Overton Hill in the time i'd allotted, so returned a while later on bicycle: the ruts were so deep i could not peddle when in them, and fell off the bike more times than i can remember: later, i followed a 4x4 slithering its way up the Ridgeway towards the Wansdyke, transforming the way into a bubbling, sucking, mud bath. the vehicle seemed to be swimming instead of motoring. why do motorists do this?



R

Megalith - thanks for an interesting post - I can tell I'm going to learn a lot from you!

Motorists do awful things with 4x4s because they have failed to think. A few years back they were banned from one fo our 9I'm American) national parks. There was a great deal of sound and fury on the topic - all of the protestors complained that "I like to ride my ATV through the park" and when asked about what the AT did to the eco-system simply replied "but *I* like to ride..." (sigh)

Megalith, i know what you mean about 4x4's and fast motorcycles ripping up the ground and scaring people and horses (i had to add horses). All i can do is apologise for the people that are doing these things. Its puts us more courteous road users in a bad light. And seeing your footage of that section of the ridgeway that is all rutted has made me retract my statement about wanting to ride over it.

The motorcycle types scaring people reminds me of a time me and my freinds were riding whats called Royches Clough in the Peak district (about halfway along there is a burial Mound), we rode down the loose rocky sandstone track to the bottom from the Chinley end and at the bottom were a couple of 4x4's, the guys in the 4x4's (one of them being a ex-army 1 ton landy) waved is passed them as they were going to take a while to get up the other side, as we climbed up the horrible rock steps at the other side there were two people watching us from the footpath (just to clarify the "road" is in a 10ft deep gully and there is a worn path above that walkers use) we got to the top and decided to stop the bikes and watch this huge vehicle get up the steps, on our way down to watch we stopped to talk to the two people, it turned out they were the land owners whos land the road passes through and they liked to come to this spot to watch the 4x4's trying to get up the rock steps (because most fail and have to go back). Anyway, a couple of lads on KTM's decided they wernt going to wait for the 4x4's to get up and rode thier bikes up the footpath at breakneck speed and made all of us jump backwards off the small footpath. I remember the chap saying to us, "Its people like them that give lads like you a bad name".

So once again, sorry for the bad uns.

Best Regards

Lee.