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Other Avebury Sights
Other Avebury Sights
West Kennett Avenue is the prehistoric processional avenue of stones which leads from the south east quadrant towards the Sanctuary on Overton Hill some 1 and 1/4 miles distant. Keiller re-erected all of the stones in this section of avenue in the 1930s and it gives a vivid impression of what it must have been like for prehistoric people to walk between the pairs of alternating stones (some theorists say representing male and female) to the ancient site of the Sanctuary. Unfortunately, Keiller only managed to re-erect 3/4 mile of Avenue and it cuts off abruptly at a fence. The National Trust have recently purchased the farm land beyond this boundary, but no plans for further excavation have been set. There is a small layby at the bottom end of the avenue if people wish to drive to it instead of walking from Avebury village.
The Sanctuary is the final prehistoric destination of West Kennett Avenue and is situated on Overton Hill on the A4, just where the Ridgeway Path bisects the A4. This was the site of a prehistoric temple, far older than the Avebury complex itself. All that remains is a series of concentric circular post holes, and stone holes (the stones having been removed in the 17th century) the positions of which are now marked by concrete markers to give you some impression of the scale of the building. Standing at the centre of the circle, you can glance back towards Avebury Village and see the hole markers for the first pair of Avenue stones which eventually join up with the rest of West Kennett Avenue. Acrss the A4 from here are several later Bronze Age burial mounds.
Silbury Hill is the largest man-made hill in Europe (130 feet high) and is thought to be contemporary with the Avebury henge complex. It is named after a mythical King Sel, who was thought to be buried at the base of the mound, but several generations of excavations have revealed no burials. It lies along the A4 to the south west of Avebury, and was thought to be the final destination of the long lost Beckhampton Avenue, another processional avenue of stones from Avebury which has long since vanished (apart from two stones now stranded in the middle of a field - the Longstones - Adam and Eve, as they are known). The hill itself is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and access is restricted. There is a car park and viewing area off the A4.
West Kennett Long Barrow is a neolithic passage tomb with a row of impressive sarsen stones guarding the entrance. Access to the long barrow is by a 1/4 mile footpath from a layby on the A4 just to the east of Silbury Hill. The barrow itself is on the brow of a chalk ridge, and is one of the longest chambered barrows of its kind in Europe. Access to the inside of the tomb is open, and well worth exploring. At the end of the neolithic, the tomb was filled with rubble and was left that way until archaeologists in the 1960s excavated the inside, revealing dozens of skeletons of all ages in the various compartments.
Other local areas of interest include Windmill Hill neolithic enclosure, Hackpen Hill White Horse, East Kennett Long Barrow and the Ridgeway Path.
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Avebury Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.