Avebury

Avebury may make me change my mind about Neolithic sites. It was a beautiful town. We came there for lunch and the pub gave us a limited choice of food in order to accommodate all of us. The pub has a well that supposedly contains the body of a murder victim. You'd be surprised how many wells seem to have those but this one was built right into the pub and served as a table.On the way in we passed a giant mound that is apparently the biggest Neolithic monument in Europe. It's just a big mound of earth but it is impressive to consider its scale.

The town itself is small and it is not obvious where it fits in to the Neolithic era. It is very odd when you realize that it is built inside a giant stone circle similar to Stonehenge only much more massive.There are earthworks forming a circle around the entire town.

These embankments were quite large and suggest that the builders were working on a project of massive importance to them. God knows what it was.

Apparently the stones were buried underground in the 1600s because they were thought to contain evil spirits and were used by the devil and worshiped by the credulous village folk. They only restored them in the 1800s.

What was really nice about Avebury was the feeling of age. It was an old town and felt it which isn't always the case with towns or monuments. I wouldn't recommend spending a day here. There was little there to justify a stay of more than a couple hours but they were a nice couple hours and I do not regret them. The place does seem to get a fair amount of tourist traffic in the summer. I'd recommend going there in the winter when it's almost deserted. That's really the proper mindset to experience this place. It was so isolated and quiet that it was spooky.

One of the nice things about the town was its ancient Saxon church. This church dates back to the 10th Century and is a great example of Saxon architecture. The spire looks to be newer though.

 

 St. James' Church was very nice on the inside. It is clearly still used yet it maintains an ancient feel. Parts of it look very much as they did during the Middle Ages, and the rest looks like it was designed in the 1800s.

Inside the church was this baptismal font. This is a really great example of Saxon carving. I love finding things like this. The church didn't have a Saxon cross but it definitely felt Saxon.

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51°25'42.56"N, 1°51'14.54"W