Stones and wood, London, Day 3

April 1, 2019

Wow, I was up at 5:45 this morning!  And I was super tired when I crawled out of bed.  I had scheduled a day trip tour to Avebury to see the stone circles.  I have a love of stone circles.  Even before I read Outlander!  I also love anything slightly Pagan.  So I had to get up to shower, eat breakfast, and get to the train station by 7:30 for my pickup.  Projected return time to London was  7:00 pm.   Only two companies go to Avebury, so I chose Anderson.  So as I left my building, I realized that I should have grabbed my hat!  So, back up in the elevator, down the hall, etc.  to grab my hat, then a quick walk to London Bridge Station!  I reached the station just at 7:30, at a near trot toward the end.  At the pick-up site, I was met with a tiny little bus--about the size of a hotel shuttle bus--5 rows of seats.  Good--that meant a smaller tour!  Steve was the driver and said that I was the only one at that stop and that we'd go pick up the others (London Bridge was the first of five).  Next, we headed to Victoria Station, with Steve talking the whole way!  Occasionally, I'd ask a question and eventually we were on the subject of politics.  He is pro-Brexit, so I asked him why and he answered-- at length.  He seems very conservative.  Then he said that he wasn't going to talk about politics anymore and gave me a mini- history tour of London as we passed things.  Architecture, royal families, industry, etc.   Then at Victoria station we picked up two more people and when one of them asked how many more, Steve said that we were it!  Only three of us plus our driver/guide.  He continued his driving history of London, then switched to early peoples--neolithic, iron age, stone age, etc. and the reasons for stone circles.  By this time he had switched to the microphone, but I started to doze a bit.  I heard most of what he had to say.

Then we stopped at a service on the motorway for bathrooms and coffee or snack purchases.  Back on the motorway, he was quiet for a little bit, so I could recline my seat and doze more deeply.  Then as we got closer, around 10:00,  he began to talk in the microphone again, so I sat up.  First, we were going to the West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill.  The Barrow, basically, is a long burial tomb.  There are over 300 barrows in this small area of England, most of them round, a few of them long, like this one.  We pulled the car onto the shoulder and could see Silbury Hill across the road.  Silbury Hill is man-made, mainly out of chalk and stone and soil, 30 meters high.  It was built over 120 years (starting in 2470 BCE), each generation adding things with some sort of plan.  Several tunnels have been built  into it, but they didn't find anything and the tunnels finally collapsed, so they abandoned the plan.  Our guide is sure that it is a government/military plot (he's ex-military).  No one knows what it was for.   The romans built a road when they came and started a village at the foot of the hill.

Silbury Hill

We then needed to hike up the hill on the other side of the road from Silbury to get to the West Kennet Long Barrow.  Our guide asked if brisk was fine and we agreed.  He showed us flint along the trail.  The neolithic people would thinly slice it to make tools--arrows, knives, etc.  It is very sharp.  He told us to keep the chunks of flint he handed us.  One of the other members of our group dug up several more pieces of flint as well.  On the way to the barrow, we crossed a small stream--the Kennet River.  It was totally clear!  We saw a woman and our guide said that she is a druid.  A group of druids live in the small wooded area near the barrow and they watch over and take care of it. The barrow was originally open, but then they put a sarasen rock (like the standing stones) standing in front of the entrance.  The English Heritage group has created an opening right behind the rock to get in.  We were the only people at the barrow, so photos without tourists!  Our guide told us to whisper inside to honor the souls who may still be there.  And spoke about the rocks and their connection to the Earth and how some people feel energized being there.  I touched the rocks and felt calmness overtake me.  We then walked on top of the barrow.  It is the same height as Silbury Hill.  The stone circles of Avebury were behind a nearby large hill.  The barrow is great, because there is no admission or person standing there, no fences (except for those between the fields that you have to open and close as you hike up).   We wore our jackets and hats though, it was chilly!  

Kennet River.  The woods in the background are where the druids live.

The barrow

The Sarsen Stone in front of the barrow.  (that's our guide talking about the
connection the rocks have to the Earth)

walking into the barrow

Looking out from the barrow

One of the areas of the barrow

another room of the barrow

Standing on top of the barrow, looking along it's length

Silsbury Hill from the barrow.

The front of the West Kennet Long Barrow

The druids use many of the trees for celebrations.  this one still has ribbon hanging in it from their last celebration

Avebury is the largest stone circle in the world (Avebury has a long A at the beginning, so it is pronounced Ayv'•bree with the middle and last syllable sort of smushed together like the English are fond of doing).   The village and two smaller circles  are currently inside the main circle.  There are only 74 left of the 300 stones that were originally placed.  Back in neolithic days, the village was nearby, not in the circle.  Then, around the time that the Christian church decided that the stones were part of witchcraft and removed many of them, the village was moved into the circle.  There are fences around the fields where the stones are, but there are gates to access them.  You can just walk up and touch them!  Very cool!  There is also a processional avenue of stones leading to the circle for when the people would go for ceremonies.  They would often burn their dead bodies near the river (every stone circle has a water source nearby), then bring the ashes to  the circle to celebrate them going to the ancestors.  Water is sacred, wood is life, stone is death.  We had an hour and a half in the area, so I went to the local church, then the museum, then walked along the stones, touching them all!  They are all local Sarsen stones.  It was warming up, so just had my sweatshirt, left my jacket in the bus. I also walked a short way of the avenue.  Then I stopped in the pub to get lunch (it was 1:10 by then), but they didn't start serving for another 45 minutes.  Well, I was supposed to meet our bus at 1:30, so I went back to the museum snack bar to get a sausage roll to eat.  I still had 10 minutes, so I sat down on a bench to eat it, facing the church and thatched cottages--not a bad view.  The museum was small and okay, but not great.  the church was small and sweet.  It had two tables inside next to the door with tablecloths and notes that you were welcome to eat picnics there, but to make sure you picked up your crumbs so as not to feed the church mice!  And another note on the door to the vestibule to leave to door open so that the swallows could go in and out.  Oh, and a "henge" is the ditch that they dig around the stone circles, not the circles or stones themselves.

In the village.  this is the driveway leading to the manor house (I didn't visit the manor house)

The ancient church

The church

The tiny but sweet church

Their note about the nesting swallows!

16th Century dovecote

Inside the dovecote

The museum inside a thatched-roof barn

The Northwest stones

My selfie

the dug henge

Signs of spring

The Northern Inner Circle

The southern inner circle

The portal stones from the avenue into the circle

The promenade or avenue

The SW sector

Part of the village; my view as I ate my lunch snack

The driveway to the manor house

Next, we were on to Stonehenge.  We had to park in the bus park.  We had up to 2 1/2 hours there, but our guide said that he would be at the bus 45 minutes early in case we were done and wanted to leave early.  Well, the first two times I've been to Stonehenge before, there was a small car park, then your walked across the street to view the circle.  That isn't there anymore.  Now it is much further away (on the other side) with an exhibition and buses to take you there.  Our guide mentioned that if you told the driver, they would drop you off on the way in a wooded trail head with several different walks including a 20 minute walk across the plain to get there.  I went to the exhibit--interesting and interactive, then took the guide's suggestion and had the driver drop me off partway to walk the rest of the way.  The rest of the bus was packed, so I was glad to not be stuck with them and their selfie-sticks at the henge.  It was nice and sunny, so the walk was great!!  The stones are local sarsen and bluestone from Wales.  After that, I went back and got an ice cream cone at the snack stand before meeting the bus at 4:30.  The couple (they're from Los Angeles) was already there.  The driver said that he had one extra, he wanted to show us Woodhenge and what was left of the ancient village of Durrington.

Burial mounds seen walking to Stonehenge

My walk

approaching stonehenge

the henge

A map of the area

Lots of photos of stonehenge

This bird it on a stone pin that was carved to fit a lintel on top

Aubrey Holes were found with bones in them.  they're not sure exactly what they were or why there were.

Here  is the naturally-occurring chalk in this overturned clod of earth.

Woodhenge consisted of many wooden poles stuck in the Earth, the shortest being 5 meters tall.  They have, of course, all rotten and fallen down since then, so they put short concrete markers in the correct spaces with the correct diameters.  I've heard that from above, you can see the pattern, but from the ground, you can just see the rings and lines.  Woodhenge and Stonehenge are near the Avon River.  (Our guide said that Avon means river in Saxon, but there are several rivers named the Avon river in England and they all seem to be important rivers, so maybe it isn't redundant to call them essentially the "river river".)  Across the road from Woodhenge is where the ancient village of Durrington was located.  The neolithic people of Durrington built Stonehenge.  They seemed to bring the cremated ashes of their dead to the wooden circles, then walk to the river, walk along the river, then up the promenade or avenue from the river to stonehenge (recently discovered) for the ceremony.  So they used the circles for ceremonies as well as like a clock to know when the solstices are so that they could plan when to plant crops and when to have children (!).

A possible picture of woodhenge

The rows of what would have been wooden pillars

These point to the river

Hard to see Durrington Walls

Okay, weird stuff--the openings of all barrows face east (just like churches), Avebury, Stonehenge, and West Kennet are all on the same ley line.  Our guide held a suspended quartz crystal near the ley line and it moved on it's own (the sarsen stones and blue stones are made of quartz).  There are a bunch of mathematical triangles you can make connecting henges.  Our guide thinks his country's military (who owns and uses most of the Salisbury plain) is conducting weird goings-on and pointed out the English military's Area 51.  Military planes are not allowed to fly over Stonehenge, even though it is in the middle of their training area.

Going back toward London, our guide pointed out several ancient Iron Age fortress sites.  They stepped the hillsides to slow their attackers down.  Then we were dropped off pretty much on time.  I was starving and the first thing I saw was a McDonald's and a gut bomb sounded really good, so I got a quarter-pounder with cheese meal and ate it on a bench in the train station (the McDonald's is take-out only like many cafes here and by the time I got to my apartment it would be cold).  There were two other people on the set of benches also eating McDonald's!   Then I walked back to my apartment in the dark and sat down to write this (and text with my son!).   So as soon as I get the photos edited and uploaded, I'm going to bed.  I woke up sore this morning--hips from walking yesterday, back from sciatica, and feet from my blisters.  Hoping tomorrow is less soreness!  It is a 90% chance of rain.  I am planning a museum I heard of, then walking around, then back here to change to go to Wicked.