Folklore

West Kennett Avenue
Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue

Just beyond West Kennet we enter the precincts of the great temple of Avebury – if temple it be; for on the left hand stand the remains of what was once a grand avenue of huge stones that led to the Great Circle. The land surrounding these stones being now under cultivation, it is not always possible to follow the line of the avenue to its goal, but at certain times it can be done, and then the visitor, before reaching the outer stone circle, passes through the vallum which encircles it.

Many of the Avebury villagers hold to the not uncommon belief that stones grow. To prove that this is so they point out some in this avenue which they say are eighteen inches higher now than when as boys they first observed them.

‘A history of the borough and town of Calne’ by A E W Marsh (1904).