Discovering Neolithic Wiltshire

I’m sure pretty much everyone has heard of Stonehenge. But how many of you have heard of Avebury? I hadn’t until we came to live in Wiltshire last year. We stumbled across it by accident: driving back late one night from a trip to the coast, we suddenly found ourselves on a country road with huge shapes looming surreally at us through the darkness. They turned out to be huge stones.

I did some investigating and found the stones were part of the ‘Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site’. This was a bit of a surprise as Stonehenge is 15 miles south of Avebury and so the site is massive. I also learned that the UK has a whopping 28 World Heritage Sites and that the stone circle at Avebury is the largest in Europe!

Of course, we visited Avebury as soon as possible and we’ve gone regularly ever since. The stones are all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes and arranged in a huge circle. The best thing about it is that – unlike Stonehenge – you can actually get among the stones and touch them. James loves it – he likes playing hide and seek among the stones. Another thing that’s great about Avebury is that it doesn’t get as busy as Stonehenge.

As well as wandering among the stones, we also enjoy visiting the huge beech trees on the outer bank. Their roots spread across the surface of the ground and are interwoven in incredible patterns. James likes rolling a small ball across them to see where it goes. It’s never gone the same way twice and he is fascinated by this!

There are lots of walks in the surrounding countryside and we’ve got our eye on walking across Neolithic Wiltshire to Stonehenge some time soon. I’ve also realised that I still have 14 World Heritage Sites to visit… although St Kilda and the three overseas ones might be a bit of a challenge!