A Prehistoric Landscape in Wiltshire

By: Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett


Looking across Avebury Stone Circle

To be able to travel back in time and see a man-made Neolithic landscape that is over 5,000 years old is pretty incredible. 
The stone circle at Avebury is the largest in the world. It's 14 times larger than Stonehenge, was built about 500 years earlier, it takes up an area of 28 acres and is a mile to walk all the way around.


Information board showing Avebury
would have looked in Neolithic Times

My coach group were full of anticipation about their visit to a prehistoric henge monument.  However before we got to the village, I was able to point out Windmill Hill, where, as far back as 3,500 years BC, the late stone age people had formed a settled community, and had started farming and domesticating animals. This was long before the stone circles were built.  Although nothing remains of their camp above ground, archaeological digs on Windmill Hill had uncovered lots of buried objects such as stone tools and pottery showing that the local people were trading and socialising with different tribes from places as far away as Cornwall and the Lake District.

Admiring the stones

As we drove through Avebury my group were starting to see large unhewn standing stones. It was a glorious day, perfect for a walk and my group were keen to have a look around.  We parked the coach and walked towards the site.  An information board along the route helped with the interpretation of the stone circle.  Originally 170 -180 stones had been dragged from the surrounding area on wooden rollers and placed upright within a very large, deep ditch surrounded by an earth bank.  Over the years many of the stones were taken away, broken up and the fragments could be seen in walls and buildings around the site, but there were enough stones to get an idea of the importance of area and marvel at the construction and man-hours taken to create it all. The reason for building can only be guesswork, but a museum in the stables of Avebury Manor House was well worth a visit and showed that Avebury Stone Circle was just part of a group of prehistoric sites, so the display helped to put the whole area into context.   We enjoyed the museum and stayed for some refreshments, before continuing our journey.