My first time was August 1994 with two friends. It was the culmination of a holiday that was supposed to last two weeks but ended up lasting five days as we ran out of cash and other useful consumables.
I seem to remember we arrived late afternoon and went straight to Silbury, we slept under the stars on the grass by the carpark having been entertained by the hospitality of a man with a converted double decker bus. I believe we were celebrating the bus's 40th birthday.
Next day we went to West Kennet and Avebury but didn't see much more as a)we didn't have time and b)my only 'stones book' at the time was Michael Balfour's 'Megalithic Mysteries' which didn't have much more in it (as was a rather stupidly big thing ot be carting around...).

My first visit - my first visit to any megalithic site, in fact - must have been during 1983 when my sister's then husband was stationed at RAF Lyneham. Right on, NOT! He's since history, the sucker.

I recall being suitably awed by the massive stones, but, to be honest, not really having a clue what was going on. Simply too extensive a site. Not that I probably have much more of a clue now, it has to be said, since the Avebury 'big picture's' only really visible from the air, I guess.

Copey's Peggy Suicide photo, followed by the Jehovah Kill sleeve notes etc began a growing interest, but it was not until two visits in 2001 that I finally got to walk around the place properly. Exhausting......

Onto Avebury, and then WKLB … almost got run over on the A4 as thought it was a quiet country road. On the way back to London the driver was persuaded to do a detour stop at Stonehenge, so that was my first glimpse of Stonehenge too.

It was just a pleasant day out from London; I had no idea at that time that I would leave London and be living just a few miles away from Avebury; or how much Avebury would become synonymous with some of life’s more recent memorable events … but that’s another chapter.

june

My first ever visit to Avebury - and countless subsequent ones - were actually visits THROUGH Avebury!

Working, as I did at the start of the 90s, in a small village not far from Swindon, I used to get the bus from Southampton, via Salisbury, twice a week.

I remember the first time I ever got that bus, marveling at the glorious countryside and twee little villages it passed through, along with the not-so-twee MOD stuff and eventually to Swindon itself.

As the bus turned off the A4 up a small lane, I nearly jumped out of my seat when I saw - what was that? A standing stone? 2? WHOA!!! I'd never seen anything like it in my life! The bus skirted along The Avenue, and I was mesmerised! I wanted to take in EVERY single stone as we passed... I couldn't take my eyes off them!

Then came the enormous bank, and then - WOW! Didya see the size of them stones??? My god!!! How I wanted to just get off that bus there and then and stay, wondering around the stones, forever!

But I had to get to work. :(

Every week, and every bus journey was the same. No time to stop off and have a wander around. The suspense was killing me! I didn't drive at the time, nor did many people I knew. So for nearly 2 years all I had were my magnificent - albeit brief - glances as the bus trundled through and on to Swindon.

It was some years until I passed my driving test (I was a late starter!), and it was soon after that I decided I simply *must* go and explore this wonderful and magical site.

I'd met Mrs G the same year as passing my test so we visited together, and fell in love with the place. It was the start of a great adventure which has taken us all over the UK in search of ancient stones...

The first time I'd ever met anyone from TMA was at Avebury, for our first ever Heritage Action meeting. A day I remember fondly (even though I was extremely nervous - I'd never met anyone off t'internet before!) as it was the start of some very strong and lasting friendships...

Before Avebury, the only first-hand experience I'd had of a stone circle was seeing Stonehenge from the window of a coach on the way back from a school trip in the early 80s. Someone pointed out the window and I peered out at exactly the moment Concorde was flying above it! Which was nice.

Every time we go to Avebury it seems to expand in size as we discover more aspects to the site, and indeed to the whole of the area. There's still tons of stuff we've not seen, but it's that which encourages us to come back so often.

G x

I simply can't remember when my first trip to Avebury was.

I remember visiting Stonehenge in about 1970 when I was little girl and we stopped off to walk up to the stones (you could then) on the way back from a family holiday in Cornwall. We may have called in Avebury on that same day but it's nearly 40 years ago now...

I started visiting Avebury regularly once I'd moved to Oxford in 1985 and I'd got a car. When my daughter and son were babies and growing up in the early 90s, we'd go for picnics a couple of times a summer, and frog-march the sprogs round the sites.

I remember having a picnic with treaclechops and Rupe, then aged about 4, at WKLB. Rupe, having lost interest in his sandwich, toddled off on his own to investigate what was inside. He ran back out screaming and crying: "there's a monster inside!" and no amount of persuasion would get him to go back in. Turns out some drunken crusty had gone to sleep in a dark corner in one of the chambers and was snoring loudly. Rupe still enters WKLB in fear...

My parents moved down from the North to Swindon in 1957. I remember my first sight of the Downs (Barbury Castle to be exact) from the front of our new house not far from Coate Water, and even at the age of twelve having a feeling of 'coming home' (aye, a bit of a cliché I know but none-the-less true). As schoolboys, Coate Water, its banks, bushes and streams, became our playground in true Richard Jefferies Bevis style - always with the Downs as a backdrop, and always somehow beckoning.

I can remember cycling out from Swindon to Savernake Forest with school friends in the late 50s, and to Avebury and Lechlade as well but can't honestly remember how I felt about the Avebury Henge back then. In the mid 60s, as art students, Avebury, West Kennet, Silbury and the surrounding Downs were places where we'd go to visit, sketch or paint.

As for Avebury itself, the antiquarian penny still hadn't dropped. It wasn't until I'd lived abroad (without ever once returning to England in some seven years) that a homesickness for the rolling Downland of Wiltshire, and a growing interest in ancient Britain, lead me back again to Avebury. Even then it wasn't actually Avebury that lit the megalithic fuse; it was the sight of Silbury, and the walk there from Avebury along the Winterbourne that did it.

Silbury stands for me (as it does for many) as the quintessential symbol of my relationship with this land. Silbury, this wonderful ancient structure which has suffered such appalling damage and desecration over recent centuries, from tunnelling to (very nearly and very recently) a time capsule being placed at its centre, somehow points a finger at what we are capable of (aesthetically and destructively) and has probably influenced me, more than anything else, towards following a life dedicated to the protection and conservation of our heritage.