[1] Before leaving the car park, walk to the viewing point overlooking Silbury Hill.
(A) The Hill was constructed in three phases from 2700BC to 2300BC, around the same time as the pyramids. It is regarded as the most enigmatic and mysterious Neolithic site in Europe (nothing has been found inside the mound despite recent excavations to stabilise the site), and is certainly the largest man-made structure, being 40 metres high with a base area of over 2 hectares. However, the most impressive statistic is that working full-time, it would have taken 700 men ten years to complete – barring strikes and other industrial unrest!
Now head for the busy road and turn left, walking along the pavement passing the hill. Cross the road when necessary and continue to reach a gate signed ‘West Kennet Long Barrow’. Go through and follow the path over a brick bridge, through a gate, then go left to reach a broad, grass path.
[2] Follow the path up the hillside to reach West Kennet Barrow.
At weekends, a steady procession of sightseers can be found trooping up and down the path, the mystery of the restored edifice enough to tempt them from the warmth of their cars. They also put paid to any remaining hopes of a mystical experience amidst the ghosts of the Stone-Age farmers laid to rest here. Their bodies decayed slowly until the flesh had dropped off the bones, at which point some lucky soul entered the tombs and tidy up, ready for the next interment.
(B) Inside the tomb, there are four side chambers accessed from a central passage, plus a larger one at the end. The barrow has a total length of 100 metres and is 25 metres wide, yet the chambers only penetrate about 8 metres into the mound; what lies beyond is anyone’s guess. Construction had begun around 3600BC, but the tomb was only finally sealed fourteen hundred years later. That’s an awful lot of decay! The illumination inside now comes from a couple of thick glass skylights built into the roof during restoration after scientific excavation in 1956, when numerous skeletons were found.
Retrace you steps now to the bottom of the hill and turn right along the field-edge path, following it to a stile. Cross to a track and continue in the same direction to reach a lane. Climb the stile on the far side into a meadow, then walk ahead, boundary right, eventually climbing another stile. Beyond, follow a hedge-lined path, emerging onto a track junction where you turn left. Follow the track, becoming a driveway, to a road with a brick-built sewage pumping station on the left.
[3] Turn left, crossing the bridge, then immediately right, follow the field edge with a stream away to your right. Beyond a field gate (usually open) is a byway turn left and climb the hillside, boundary left, to reach a road, where you pass through a gate on your left to enter the site of The Sanctuary.
(C) Given this name in the 18th century, the first construction began around 3000BC and consisted of roofed, circular buildings, one replacing another on the same site over a period of several hundred years. The site was eventually linked to Avebury by an avenue of about 100 pairs of standing stones, of which few now survive. The function of this structure seems to be a mystery, but excavation suggests that it eventually became a centre for some type of mortuary practice. Today, the site is confusingly marked out with concrete posts and slabs, indicating where the supports for the various huts stood.
[4] Leaving the Sanctuary, cross the road with extreme care to the start of the Ridgeway. This 137 kilometre National Trail largely keeps to the line of a prehistoric ridge track, one of many that followed natural ways along the contours of high ground avoiding forested and poorly drained lowlands. You follow this, climbing gently, for almost two miles. It is easy walking although in places the ground has been rutted by the 4-wheel drive vehicles that use the route in the summer months. There are good views to either side with numerous earthworks to be seen if you look carefully. The first are on the right, where an information board explains their origin, while if you look across the fields to the left, the clusters of trees all have tumuli beneath them. As the walk progresses, you will see away to your right, scattered grey boulders on the downland these are Sarsen Stones (the ones that move are sheep).
50-70 million years ago, hard sandstone was formed above the chalk layer of the Marlborough Downs and following geological movement and weathering, this sandstone was broken into blocks and deposited over the chalk downland. Known as Sarsens, they occur widely in Wessex but their greatest concentration is on the North Wiltshire Downs. They provided a local supply of suitable material for Neolithic megaliths, as standing stones and chambered tombs, and also as grindstones for stone tools. as well as Avebury’s circles.
[5] Eventually, you reach a junction of tracks, with a gate and information board on your right, and a signpost directing you left to Avebury village. You have an easy descent of almost a mile on this broad track, called Green Street, before reaching a tarmac surface. This byway then cuts through the embankment of the henge as you arrive in Avebury and pass the Tourist Information Centre on the left. The Red Lion Pub is over to your right, an excuse to revert to the shorter route, and continuing into the High Street, there are good views of the stone circles to your left.
(D) Avebury henge is one of the largest and certainly the most complex of all the stone circles surviving today. The outer ditch was originally up to 10 metres deep and 21 metres wide, with a diameter of 350 metres. It is estimated that at least 247 huge stones formed an outer and two inner circles, all this achieved with the crudest of tools fashioned from wood and animal bones between 4300 and 4700 years ago.
[6] Take a lane right signed ‘Cafe and Visitors’ Centre, to reach what was originally the farmyard of Avebury Manor Farm. Here is also to be found the ubiquitous National Trust shop. Toilets are behind the 17th century thatched threshing barn, now the ‘Avebury Experience’, while on the left stands the circular dovecote, that housed up to 500 pigeons, bred as a source of meat during the winter months. Ahead lies a museum, manor house and gardens and the church round the corner to the left.
(E) Avebury Manor, a regularly altered house of monastic origins, is owned by the National Trust. The present building dates from the early 16th century and has notable Queen Anne alterations and Edwardian renovations. The Edwardian topiary and flower gardens contain medieval walls and both the house and gardens are open (seasonally) to the public. Next to the entrance is the Alexander Keiller museum housing archaeological artifacts excavated in and around Avebury. Keiller, an amateur archaeologist and heir to the Dundee marmalade firm purchased Windmill Hill after the first World War to stop Marconi, the wireless pioneer, building a relay station there. Having acquired the Hill, Keiller started excavations and when he bought the Manor in 1934 he moved his private museum to the coach house. This museum is open throughout the year.
The church is worth a brief visit; it is thought to have been built around 1000AD and still retains a number of Anglo-Saxon features plus an extremely rare 15th century rood-loft where the Great Rood, a large crucifix, was placed.You may be surprised at its shape when you see the interior and the porch makes a welcome shelter in inclement weather.
If you are opting for the shorter route, make your way to the National Trust car park, walk through to the road, then cross with care to reach a gate then follow the main narrative from step [12].
Those on the full circuit will leave the village via the churchyard, following the wall on the right until you reach the exit. Now walk with the wall of Avebury Manor on your right to join a metalled driveway by whitewashed cottages. Continue ahead, the drive becoming a path again, and beyond the white-railed footbridge bear right at a junction.
(F) The moated farmhouse on your left belonged to the Truslow family, wealthy landowners until they left the area in the early 18th century. The hamlet of Avebury Truslow will be passed later in the walk. After heavy rain, the dry moat fills to the brim with water from the nearby Kennet.
[7] Leave the tarmac footpath via a stile on the right and cross the meadow to a sturdy footbridge. Go over, then walk ahead to climb a stile into a further meadow (these fields may be waterlogged in winter). Continue in the same direction and over another stile. Beyond a further set of stiles, walk with the boundary left to a final stile by a field gate.
[8] Once over, walk left along the track that climbs to Windmill Hill, passing through a metal gate. The track ends at a wooden gate by an information board that makes some sense of the area you are about to enter.
(G) Windmill Hill, though sometimes referred to as a Neolithic fort because of the ditches surrounding it, wasn’t used as fortress at all. It is thought that festivals and markets took place here during the summer months, the rest of the year given over to death and burial rituals. Proof of the latter events was found during excavation of some of the ditches. Many human and animal bones were uncovered, the bodies left in a nearby mortuary house until the flesh rotted, when the bones were removed to the ditches. Construction here started around 3700BC but a mere 1000 years later its use declined – around the same time that the Avebury circles were started.
Head for the first of the round barrows, from where you can get your bearings. You need to cross the site aiming half-left and picking up an indistinct grassy track that leads you down to a gate.
[9] Go through and turn left down the track. Easy downhill walking again now, with fine views away to the right where Lansdowne Column can be seen on Cherhill Down. The track becomes a lane and you continue, eventually arriving at a junction of metalled lanes. Keep going in the same direction, passing between farm buildings and now on a broad, grassy bridleway. As the track bears right, look in the field on the left to see two standing stones.
(H) These stones are all that remains of an avenue of megaliths that stretched from here back to the great henge in Avebury. It is thought that all the stones would have been visible until the end of the 12th century when Christianity was struggling to make a comeback and such pagan monuments as the stone circle and the two avenues of stones that ran southwest and south-east from it were all but destroyed. Thirty stones were recorded as standing on this, the Beckhampton Avenue, in the early part of the 18th century but the others were broken up for building material.
[10] When you reach a junction turn left and walk with the stones again on your left for 150 metres until with a conifer hedge right, you get to a lane. keep in the same direction to enter the hamlet of Avebury Truslow. Walk along South Street with its interesting mix of old and new dwellings, then straight on over crossroads. As you approach the end of this road, look for a stile in the fence on the right.
[11] Climb over and head half-left over undulating grassland to another stile on the far side, giving access to the busy A4361. Turn left, you have 250 metres of this road to negotiate, so keep close to the rough grass verge or preferably on it. Pass over New Bridge which spans the River Kennet then look across to the right for a gateway (before the car park is reached on the left). Cross with care to the gate. The shorter route joins here.
[12] Pass through the gate and follow the path, this final stretch of the walk takes you back to the car park and Silbury Hill, following for the most part the River Kennet that at this point in summer is usually a dried up, reed-choked ditch, whilst in winter it flows fast and free. The path is easily followed now, keeping close to the river bank with fields to your left.
[13] On reaching a gate, go through and turn right to cross a bridge. Pass through another gate, then follow the path as it steers you back to your starting point.