Re: Avebury | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Avebury

tjj Mar 22, 2018 17:55:27

Replying to moss

moss wrote:

Trouble is we all want to go to Avebury it has become over popularised and too many humans around, like Stonehenge a 'honeypot' to be exploited sadly.

The National Trust car park is nearly always at least partially full between the times of 10am - 4.00pm (later in the summer months of course). Anyone who wants Avebury to themselves should go a bit earlier/later or walk out beyond the stone circle in almost any direction to experience solitude and few, if any, other people. As you know Moss, the Avebury World Heritage Site encompasses a wide area of great archaeological wealth plus a profusion of wild flowers, butterflies etc. I personally think it would be a great shame if visitors were charged to go into the circle in the name of preserving it - hard to enforce too (except for gullible tourists being shepherded around).

thesweetcheat Mar 25, 2018 14:05:21

Replying to tjj

tjj wrote:

... walk out beyond the stone circle in almost any direction to experience solitude and few, if any, other people.

Exactly, go up on Fyfield Down, or the downs towards Milk Hill/Tan Hill and you'll see very few people and you can find peace and solitude, shared only with kite or kestrel, a group of deer or if you're lucky a hare or two. I've come to view Avebury very much as an end (or less frequently) start point for my visits from/to various points in the landscape rather than a self-contained site to visit in isolation. I think the wider landscape is amazing. The circle is busy, but usually in a cheerful way.

Compared to the horrible soulless and sterile cash cow that Stonehenge has been made into, enclosed behind wire and separated from its landscape by hi-viz wearers and a staggeringly enormous entrance fee, Avebury remains a brilliant treasure to cherish. If that means that at some times of the year parts of the circle need to be closed off to prevent erosion (and it does erode), it's a very, very small price to pay to keep it generally open, free and connected to its wider landscape for everyone who cares to visit.