Monday, September 23, 2002
Avebury
On Sunday Mark and I went to Avebury, Silbury Hill and the West Kennet long Barrow. Pics here. The whole lot really impressed me. Avebury is a massive stone circle and earthwork circle, behold the absolutely massive stones:
Absolutely astounding, the amount of man-hours that must've gone into shifting these megaliths over miles of rather hilly land. Makes you wonder about the 2001 Arthur C Clarke scenario, those aliens.
Anyway, more impressive than this I thought was the huge earthwork ditch and ridge, which you can see hyah:
This earthwork is approximately 40 foot from base to apex, and was apparently twice as deep as this with near vertical sides when originally constructed by hordes of burly Pagans and virgins. It's still jolly impressive today, and still steep enough to make you take care scaling it.
Also astonishing was the way there were only a few stones left, the other had been nicked to build the village which resides in the centre of the circle. That's progress for you, I suppose. Anyway, after smiling benignly with a crowd of hippahs, we had an extortionately expensive lunch (£6 for a veggie organic bean wrap!) and trundled off to...
Silbury Hill
Which is another huge earthwork. It looks like this:
and is constructed of an inner core of chalk steps, covered by earth. For scale in the large pic you can just make out some cars running along the road near the bottom of it. It's been excavated and there is absolutely nothing of interest inside it, although according to this page, it was originally covered in flint which reflected the light and made it look rather impressive. Its sides also slope at exactly the same angle as the great pyramid in Egypt, which you may take as some mystic thing, or that this angle is particularly stable and suitable for building. Wasn't quite so impressed by this as you weren't allowed within 300m of it, bah.
West Kennet Long Barrow
Was far, far better. Located atop a blowy mount, and 1/2 mile trek to get there on a path that was a complete bastard to walk on with crutches, this was right up there with Avebury in my book. Basically it's a big mound (which is a good start), about 200m long, 20m wide and 5m tall, hollowed out in the middle with a stone lined chamber (with sub-chambers branching from the sides).
The difference with this one is that you can actually go inside it and walk around a 5,000 year old burial chamber for free and not be hassled by any guides or guards or anything. Incredibly atmospheric place, actually enhanced by the strong smell of incence and burning candles left by the hippahs that had been there earlier in the day. Probably wouldn't have been enhancing if the hippahs were still there, but I think theywanted to get down the pub. Apparently when they excavated it they found the remains of 40 hippy people, which is spooky in itself. I certainly wouldn't spend the night there.
On the way back we went to a white horse, which was one of those chalk picture things on the edge of a hill, not very impressive, and then I insisted we find "Watership Down", which I had never realised was a real place, it looks exactly like I had pictured it from the book/cartoon, beautiful place and sums up what the southern English countryside is all about. Observe.
Beautiful, eh? Oh and I hoped to run over a rabbit while driving over it for great irony but none obliged. Saw a kebab van called "CANERS KEBABS" on the outskirts of Basingstoke though, which made me laugh anywy.
posted by Woodsta10:40
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