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Fieldnotes
| Visiting on a Bank Holiday Monday I half expected the Avenue to be swarming with people. But of course it wasn't! I think part of the reason is because only a couple of stones are immediately visible from the henge end, so people don't think to walk down it. This is definitely their loss. I had driven from the direction of West Kennett, and parked in the little layby just where the stones start, so I had a lovely walk into the circle and back - not to deprive the NT of their new ticket-machine monies, but personally this is the route I'd recommend if you fancy a bit of peace. I don't know for sure which direction the avenue was 'supposed to be used', but I do know that the way you experience reaching the main henge with the banks rising up in front of you is much more enlightening than the sudden way you enter it from the NT carpark. Another advantage of this direction is that from lots of directions Windmill Hill doesn't look like much, which has always surprised me considering it's the Original site, older than Avebury. But walking towards it down the Avenue the Hill looks big and important: it clearly overarches the henge. Surely this must have been a consideration when this Avenue was put up? Another thing that struck me was the way the Avenue is bordered by Avebury Down on one side, and Waden Hill on the other. You get the impression it is nestling between them, but take away the stones - yes, it would be a natural route, but somehow the stones highlight it. I really felt that the stones weren't Competing with the landscape, they weren't imposing on it. Some of them are pretty massive, but they're nothing compared to the surrounding landscape, nor I felt were they trying to be. You know how at some sites the stones feel the centre of attention (Long Meg feels like this to me) but here I didn't think they were. Neither were they echoing their surroundings like I felt at Castlerigg. They just 'show you the way'. Probably a bit obvious as it's an avenue? But it's not an enclosing, single minded 'This Way' sort of avenue. If you see what I mean. I'd never walked down here before and so was pleasantly taken by its curving lines - it certainly feels profoundly un roman or christian! I thought it was quite funny that some of the stones are or should be on the opposite side of the road as the S swings round - typical that the road should develop straight from A to B through them. The S-shape reinforced to me how it's not a 'This Way, People, Hurry Up' kind of device. The journey is important - it's not just about funnelling people from one place to another. Driving back past the Avenue and out towards the Beckington roundabout, Silbury Hill quickly appeared. I admit I'd kind of forgotten about it being so close, so it was quite surprising. I remembered that Waden Hill is the hill that plays the 'Silbury Game'. Everything is so linked here; the landscape is so full of 'monuments' and each one was added (one imagines in a meaningful way) onto a layout already in existence. There's so much we don't know and can probably never know, and wandering about in this landscape is so tantalising; it's like having a phrase on the tip of your tongue but just not being able to remember it. This post appears as part of the weblog entry Moving in circles
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Posted by Rhiannon26th August 2003ce Edited 21st November 2003ce
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