Heavy rock with The Stones.

As we've got a few days to get through before we're off we are doing a bit of sightseeing. Yesterday we went neolithic/early bronze age.

Avebury henge and stone circles. The largest prehistoric stone circle in the Britain and it is impressive. This is the bank and ditch of the henge. The ditch, when first dug, was up to thirty feet deep with near vertical sides, all dug with deer antler picks.

Aerial view of the site, the village buildings give an idea of the scale of the place

and this shows the size of the stones. The lady holding the stone up is the National Trust archaeologist who gave a group of us a most interesting tour. This particular stone is called the Swindon Stone, only because it stands beside the Swindon road.

Artists impression of how it looked when new built. Most of the stones are now missing, many of them broken up for building material and quite a few just thrown down and buried in the post medieval period. Nobody knows why they did this, lots of theories from simple field clearance to destroying pagan sites for religious reasons.

Of course no one knows why it was built in the first place, it's put down to that good old catch all, ritual.
Fortunately it is big enough to lose the tourists, so even with a few hundred wandering about it doesn't seem crowded,

I will refrain from sarcastic comments about tourists, especially as we currently answer to that description.

Watch this space..........