Avebury’s Ancient Stone Circles

I finally got to Avebury Stone Circle!

(I’ve only been trying to get there for 20 years…)

Thanks to my beloved Mr F driving my bus Indie and loading up my scooter Boudicca, the trip was finally possible.

I can’t put into words just how magical the energy is at Avebury.

Avebury is the largest stone circle in the world: it is 427m (1401ft) in diameter and covers an area of about 28 acres. The Avebury complex is one of the principal ceremonial sites of Neolithic Britain that we can visit today. It was built and altered over many centuries from about 2850 BC until about 2200 BC.

The site is formed by a huge circular bank (roughly a mile around), a massive ditch, now only a half its original depth, and a great ring of 98 sarsen slabs enclosing two smaller circles of 30 stones each and other settings and arrangements of stones. Many of the stones are missing, marked by concrete obelisks to show where they once stood. The missing stones were pulled down by the people who built the village within the circle in the Middle Ages and were used to build many of the buildings there. Fear motivated these Christian people as they did not understand or respect the ways of the pre Christian peoples. Stones were being desecrated for centuries, and were only protected from the 1930s when Alexander Keiller bought the land on a mission to preserve and restore the monoliths.

As we arrived at the circle, there had to be around a hundred crows calling and circling above the huge tree pictured below.

The power up I felt immediately… before I even touched a stone… beyond amazing! I could feel the echoes of thousands of people in procession on sacred occasions, standing on the high banks looking down at ceremonies being held in circle.

As I touched the stones, I was surprised to feel deep oceanic and river energy of their past, so beautiful and serene. Instantly calming, and then grounding. I felt very emotional and the echoes of the importance our ancient peoples placed upon this monument. Ceremonies took place here for thousands of years.

We could see so much in this stone… the figure of a druid, faces, hands… What do you see?

 

Many of the stones had deep holes in them, from long gone tree roots in the rivers where the stones were forming from sediment millions of years ago. People had left small offerings of berries within some.

 

There were so many light anomalies no matter whether we faced the sun or not… especially here at the Ring Stone as we drummed. We were so drawn to this little flat stone, it held powerful cosmic energy. On our way home, I found its name and discovered it was once much taller, with a hole in it, hence Ring Stone. It is believed by historians to have been for astronomical viewing of the night sky. I wonder which special alignments were observed all those thousands of years ago by our Neolithic ancestors? No wonder we were drawn to it. Today, handfastings are held here.

 

Avebury, Stonehenge and Glastonbury form a right angled triangle accurate to within 1/1000. The ‘St. Michaels’ ley-line from Glastonbury to Avebury coincides with the Mayday sunrise, crossing the longest possible stretch of Southern Britain. The ley runs from St. Michael’s Mount to Brent Tor, Cadbury, Trull, Creech St Michael, Lyng, Othery, Burrowbrigde, Glastonbury, Buckland Dingham, Avebury, Ogbourne St George, East Hendred and Bury St Edmonds (All these sites have or had churches dedicated to the dragon-killing Saints Michael and George).

From Salisbury plain, beginning at the southern end of the Avebury stone circle and extending for 200 miles north-westward to Norfolk, is the prehistoric highway called the ‘Iknield Way’. The road runs dead straight on level ground and follows perfectly the contour of the land in hilly areas. It has a level surface and widens at some places to the equivalent of a modern four-lane highway. It pre-dates the Romans by 2000 yrs (9). In addition, the Sanctuary is positioned alongside the Ridgeway, which leads to the north and would have been one of the most important prehistoric routes across Britain.

The Sanctuary near Avebury has a longitude the same as Stonehenge, 17 miles to the South.

The angle from Avebury to the Sanctuary is  the same angle as the Avenue leading from Stonehenge, and the exterior angle of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Coincidence? Many sacred sites align across the planet in ways impossible for each civilisation to have known about at the time.

I’ll be back to Avebury very soon, we only explored the Southern aspects of the circles, you can see on the map below we have so much more to see and experience there.