Part Four – Vale of Pewsey

Vale of Pewsey

PART FOUR

Part 4 – Vale of Pewsey

Chirton to Avebury

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Distance: 15km

Ascent: 149m

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Highlights 0m 0km 20km 40km 60km • A short ride up and over the ridge

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into an epicentre of English prehistory. Following ancient paths across 200m an unspoilt landscape. 100m 0m Getting right up close with 0km 20km 40km archaeological wonders. Excellent views. 300m 200m Solstice rides. 100m Very simple navigation. 0m 0km 10km 20km 53km

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Navigation

After the myriad criss-cross trails of Salisbury Plain, this section will seem lovely and simple. It’s short too, just a simple up and over from Vale of Pewsey to Avebury. There are a few junctions where you’ll need to slow down and pay attention, but if you go straight across at most of them, you’ll be fine. Be aware 300m

The last section of trail before 200m Avebury has deep, narrow ruts 100m which can ambush your wheels. 0m The A4 roundabout just south west 0km 10km 20km of Avebury is likely to be very busy,

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so be very careful when crossing. The track over the top of the Downs 200m is exposed, so whatever weather is 100m hanging around, you can’t hide from 0m it up there. 0km 20km 40km

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Area introduction and route summary

From the tranquil Vale of Pewsey, it’s a stiff climb up Tan Hill before a lovely roll down into Beckhampton and over the main road into Avebury. Not only can you walk amongst the stones and stand in the middle of this incredible ancient circle, but you’re also at the centre of an incredible archaeological landscape.

Chirton to Avebury

Make sure you enjoy the easy quiet road cruise across the valley through Patney and the pretty lemon-walled thatched roof houses of All Cannings, as things get more testing quite quickly. It starts with a pothole-dodging dance along the rough cobbled track to the old humped bridge over the Kennet and Avon Canal. Then it’s your legs that will be trying to find a rhythm on the long, stiff climb up Tan Hill. Keep your head up to the horizon as you ascend though, so you don’t miss the prehistoric barrows and linear earthworks that still stare southwards over 5,000 years of history. Your effort heading up is rewarded with a fantastic long roll down into Beckhampton. After navigating the rude awakening of the busy A4 roundabout, it’s time to delve into another archaeological epicentre. It’s a mark of the splendid isolation of the Downs that the jagged grey monoliths of the Adam and Eve Long Stones, which

stand proudly in the field ahead, pull you back in time as you turn off the A road. Then you follow quiet back roads through Avebury Trusloe under the ancient gaze of the Neolithic enclosure site of Windmill Hill to the north. A quick section of smooth shared path over the freshly sprung River Kennet takes you into Avebury itself where brick villas and thatched cottages line the narrow road into the very centre of Avebury’s henge and stone circle monument. You can also take a bridleway a kilometre south from Avebury to visit the mysterious conical mound of Silbury Hill (OS grid ref: SU 100 685).

Silbury Hill

Silbury Hill is a massive 160m-wide, 30m-high Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (2750-2350 BC) mound. It was built from over half a million tons of local limestone and imported boulders over several distinct phases of construction, and the limestone facing would have been visible over huge distances. We don’t know its purpose, but the construction period coincides with the building of the Avebury henge and avenues, and two large oval enclosures at West Kennet.

West Kennet

One of the earliest parts of the incredible prehistoric jigsaw of the Avebury area, West Kennet barrow (OS grid ref: SU 105 677) is a Neolithic chambered tomb dating from around 3650 BC. Excavations have shown this mausoleum contained the remains of up to 50 people before its different chambers were blocked and the tomb was sealed. More barrows and other earthworks appeared close by 1,000-1,500 years later when Silbury Hill and the Avebury complex were being built just a couple of kilometres away.

Avebury

While it doesn’t have the globally iconic recognition of Stonehenge, Avebury is arguably a much more important site at the centre of a long-running timeline of prehistoric monuments, and is the largest stone circle in the world. It forms part of the World Heritage Site along with Stonehenge and surrounding monuments. The Great Henge still survives as a massive bank and ditch with four causewayed entrances. The bank is still four or five metres high, but once towered 17m above a 9m-deep ditch on the inside. The bank and ditch have four entrances, the southernmost aligning with the Avenue to the Sanctuary. Within the Great Henge are three stone circles. An outer circuit of around 100 stones and then two inner circles arranged in the north and south sections, each with a large centre point stone – known as the Great Obelisk and the Cove or Devil’s

Avebury Sanctuary

Nowadays, the Sanctuary (OS grid ref: SU 118 680) is just a small circular area with a ring of concrete pads marking the positions of large posts which were later replaced with large stones. Around 3000 BC though, it was clearly an extremely important site. Starting as a single small hut in a clearing it became a much larger building, eventually growing to a 40m Brandirons respectively. The exact timeline of the various ditch and bank phases and what appeared when is unknown, but all the stones are spaced around 11m apart and the site was active from 2850 BC to 2200 BC.

Unfortunately, many of the stones were buried and destroyed by the Christian church during the Middle Ages, so much of what we know is based on records and maps made by John Aubrey and William Stukeley. Thankfully, the site was bought in the 1930s by ‘marmalade millionaire’ Alexander Keiller, who cleared away modern buildings and re-erected many of the stones to create its current appearance. The local Avebury museum just to the

west of the site also bears his name. diameter stone and post circle that linked directly onto West Kennet Avenue. With no written word to help us decipher its mysteries, the Sanctuary’s purpose remains unknown, but archaeological excavations in the 1930s uncovered feasting remains as well as significant numbers of scattered human remains.