Stonehenge and Avebury 🇬🇧 England Best Place - Travel & Discover

Superbly situated in southern England's rural heartland, few destinations can match the amazing diversity of Salisbury and Stonehenge. Known as a city in the countryside, the magnificent medieval town of Salisbury has an incredible history. Originally built on an Iron Age hillfort at Old Sarum, it was moved in its entirety nearly two miles in the 1200s. A fine example of a planned medieval town, Salisbury has largely preserved its original layout. Historic streets and alleyways, charming half-timbered buildings, traditional English houses and picturesque shopping streets characterize the city of Salisbury. In medieval society, town life was distinct from country life. The two were separate, though interdependent, worlds. There were many manifestations of rural life in the city. Gardens, herds of livestock, even farms within the city walls. Yet townsmen saw themselves as distinct from country folk, and country folk viewed the cities with suspicion and envy. Towns were much smaller than modern cities, numbering generally only a few thousand people. Even the big cities could be measured in the tens of thousands, while a mere handful reached one or two hundred thousand inhabitants. The citizenry was composed of skilled tradesmen and merchants, the economic lifeblood of the city. Citizenship was generally inherited, but it could also be granted to individuals or to families, usually as recognition for some extraordinary service to the city. By the later Middle Ages, guild membership and citizenship went hand in hand. In Florence, for example, membership in a guild was a requirement of citizenship. Salisbury has held markets regularly since 1227, and nowadays holds a market on Tuesdays and Saturdays. In the 15th century, the marketplace was dotted with stone crosses marking the centers for certain trades in goods. Today, only the poultry cross remains, although the addition of flying buttresses was made in 1852. One of the reasons that the town was moved in the 12th century is that the current location has an abundance of water. Indeed, the history of Salisbury has been greatly influenced by the five tributaries of the river that meet at the site, the Avon, Natter, Wylie, Bourne, and Ebble. The main industries in Salisbury were all dependent on river water. Tanning or leatherworking was one of the more noxious of the trades associated with and located beside river water, and medieval Salisbury had numerous tanners. Salisbury was also a center of clothmaking, with a fulling mill dating from 1562. The large concentration of dyers in the region could also be found in medieval Salisbury, where a city guild existed. There is some evidence that the city's dyers were concentrated in Castle Street, where their premises would have backed onto the Avon mill stream. It is assumed that the water courses running along most streets in Salisbury were also used by dyers. The name of the Avon River comes from the Welsh word afon, meaning river. It appears that later arrivals to Britain, the Anglo-Saxon Jutes, asked the indigenous people what their local river was called, and were told, in their native language, that it was a river. The modern city of Salisbury takes great pride in its planted streets and reserves, which provides the urban area with an attractive landscape and balanced environment for the enjoyment of all residents and visitors. The city wall surrounding the close was built in the 14th century. There are five gates in the wall, four of which, known as the High Street Gate, St Anne's Gate, the Queen's Gate, and St Nicholas's Gate, are original. Soaring a breathtaking 123 meters into the sky, the spire of the Salisbury Cathedral is visible from every direction, dominating the landscape for kilometers. The spire was a daring addition, forcing the structure below to carry a dangerous amount of weight, 6,500 tons with a tower. Only a multitude of buttresses, bracing arches, and iron ties have kept it from collapsing over the centuries. The west front of the cathedral was completed in 1255, and the statues were added by 1300. Only ten of the original medieval sculptures have survived to the present day. Sixty statues were added in the Victorian period. They depict a hierarchy of bishops and doctors, saints and martyrs, apostles and evangelists, prophets and patriarchs below Christ and Majesty seated at the top. Salisbury is unique amongst medieval English cathedrals, built over the span of just 100 years and with no substantial later additions. It is arguably the finest example of the early English Gothic style of architecture in Britain. A cathedral and castle were built on the hilltop of the original city of Salisbury, Old Sarum, following the Norman conquest in 1066. Relations between the castle authorities and the clergy were uneasy, and by 1200 the bishop made the decision to move. It took another 20 years to obtain permission from both the king and the pope to allow a new cathedral to be built. Legend has it that the site was chosen by where an arrow fired from Old Sarum landed in the meadows below. Work on the new building was begun in 1220 and the cathedral was consecrated in 1258. The cathedral is home to the world's best preserved original Magna Carta, one of the most celebrated documents in English history. It was originally written to resolve a political crisis in medieval England, but its importance has only grown over the centuries. It is now recognized as a foundation stone of liberty of great significance for much of the western world. Built on a human scale and remaining true to their roots, Wiltshire's settlements fit naturally into the surrounding landscape. The Stonehenge site is part of a larger complex of monuments that lie to either side of the nearby river Avon. The National Trust protects large areas of the countryside throughout Wessex and ensures free open access to all of it. Stonehenge is one of the best known and yet most enigmatic prehistoric sites in the world. Over the centuries there has been intense debate about the significance and uses of Stonehenge. It is undoubtedly the focal point of a landscape filled with prehistoric ceremonial and burial structures. It also represented an enormous investment of labor and time. A huge effort and great organization was needed to carry the stones tens and sometimes hundreds of kilometers by land and water and then to shape and raise them. Only a sophisticated society could have mustered so large a workforce and produced the design and construction skills necessary to build Stonehenge and its surrounding monuments. Stonehenge's orientation in relation to the rising and setting sun has always been one of its most remarkable features. Yet it remains uncertain whether this was because its builders came from a sun worshiping culture or because, as some have asserted, the circle and its banks were part of a huge astronomical calendar. Clearly a sacred site, nothing is left to tell us how the stone circle was used. Stonehenge is such a magnificent monument that it would impress no matter where it is. Construction on the great monument began about 5,000 years ago. The famous stones that still stand today were put in place about 4,000 years ago. It evolved from a simple bank and ditch in the Neolithic period to a very sophisticated sewn circle built on the axis of the midsummer sunrise and rearranged several times during the Bronze Age. The first monument at Stonehenge was a circular earthen bank and ditch, called a henge, which can still be seen. Unlike other henges, the ditch lies outside rather than inside the bank. Also part of this phase is the northeast entrance aligned on the midsummer sunrise. Of the same date is a ring of obree holes inside the bank, named after John Obree, who discovered them. Some of these holes held cremated human remains. During the second period of construction, from approximately 2,900 to 2,400 BC, wooden structures were added to the earthwork enclosure. Excavations have revealed a complicated pattern of post holes in the center of the henge, as well as at the northeastern entrance and southern entrances. Nothing remains of the wooden posts, and it is impossible to tell what they looked like or the function they served. Whether they were tribal markers, like totem poles, or supports for roofed buildings is unclear. The third and final phase of Stonehenge, between about 2,600 to 1,600 BC, embraces a period of 1,000 years and is marked by a change from building in wood to building in stone. It can be divided into three stages. First, a crescent of blue stones from Wales, then the Sarsen Stone Circle, and finally, the rearrangement of the stones into their present form. The Sarsen Stone Circle, with its huge square-shaped stones, sophisticated joints, and perfect geometry, is unique within prehistoric Europe. In about 2,600 BC, 80 blue stones were transported from the Preseli Mountains in south Wales, some 385 kilometers away, and erected inside the earthen bank of the henge in a double-crescent setting. Moving this quantity of stone over such a long distance would have been a considerable undertaking. It is still unclear why these particular stones were deemed to be so special. In the early Bronze Age, sarsens from the marble downs were erected and replaced the blue stones. A continuous ring of uprights with lintels formed the outer circle, while five trilithons formed a horseshoe within. Each stone weighed more than 25 tons and had to be transported over 30 kilometers. Some of the stones have carvings resembling daggers and axes. It is also during this period that the avenue was built. What cannot be denied is the ingenuity of the builders of Stonehenge. With only very basic tools, such as antler picks and bone shovels at their disposal, they dug the enclosing ditch and erected the bank, later using similar tools to dig the holes for the stones. Other stone tools were used to shape the mortises and tenons that linked uprights to lintels. Some of these tools can be seen, together with other artifacts including personal material from graves, on display in the museums at Salisbury and Devizes. The World Heritage Site also provides an outstanding illustration of the evolution of monument construction and of the continual use in shaping of the landscape over more than 2,000 years, from the early Neolithic to the Bronze Age. The complexes of monuments at Stonehenge and Avebury provide an exceptional insight into the funerary and ceremonial practices in Britain in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The stones are aligned almost perfectly with the sunrise on the summer solstice, and it has been concluded that Stonehenge was built as a spectacular place of worship. The 18th century British antiquarian William Stuckley had noticed that the horseshoe of Great Trilithons and the horseshoe of 19 bluestones at Stonehenge opened up in the direction of the midsummer sunrise. It was quickly surmised that the monument must have been deliberately oriented and planned, so that on midsummer's morning the sun rose directly over the heel stone and the first rays shone into the center of the monument, between the open arms of the horseshoe arrangement. This discovery has had tremendous impact on how Stonehenge has been interpreted. For Stuckley in the 18th century and Sir Norman Lockyer in the first years of the 20th century, this alignment implied a ritualistic connection with sun worship, and it was generally concluded that Stonehenge was constructed as a temple to the sun. More recently though, the astronomer Gerald Hawkins has argued that Stonehenge is not merely aligned with solar and lunar astronomical events, but can be used to predict other events such as eclipses. In other words, Stonehenge was more than a temple, it was an astronomical calculator. It was argued that the summer solstice alignment cannot be accidental. The sun rises in different directions in different geographical latitudes. For the alignment to be correct, it must have been calculated precisely for Stonehenge's latitude. The alignment, therefore, must have been fundamental to the design and placement of Stonehenge. Myths, legends, and incredible explanations of its construction are linked to this mysterious site. One of the earliest explanations was that of mid-12th century pseudo-historian Geoffrey of Monmouth. According to Geoffrey, the monument's bluestones originated in Africa, where ancient giants scooped them up because of their healing properties and transported them to mythical Mount Caleris in Ireland, where they formed the giant circle. But when Aurelius Ambrosius, king of the Britons, wanted to create a memorial to slain warriors, the magician Merlin suggested to him that the stones would make excellent building material. The king sent an army to defeat the Irish in battle, but they were unable to move the stones until Merlin used his sorcery to dismantle the structure and transport it across the sea, proving in the process that the supernatural was more potent than brute force. In 1620, the eccentric English architect Inigo Jones was commissioned by King James I to document the structure of Stonehenge and investigate its origin. In 1655, three years after Jones's death, his son-in-law and assistant John Webb published a book supposedly based upon notes left behind by the architect. The book depicts Stonehenge as the ruins of a Tuscan-style temple built by the Romans during their occupation of Britain in the 1st through 5th centuries AD to venerate Caelus, the Roman god of the sky. Sir John Lubbock, the influential mid-19th century archaeologist who invented the terms Paolithic and Neolithic, was the first to date Stonehenge as a Bronze Age site, based upon bronze objects found in nearby graves and the fact that the occupants had been cremated. He also correctly deduced that the monument had been built in stages over a long period. Lubbock also compared and noted similarities between Stonehenge and other monolithic stone structures elsewhere in the world, in particular to Buddhist temples in India. Another theory was provided by Dr. William Stuckley. Stuckley argued that mankind started out with a single universal patriarchal religion, which as it spread was altered and subverted by pagan idolatry, before ultimately being restored by Jesus. By Stuckley's account, England was visited in 460 BC by travellers from the Middle East, possibly Phoenicians, a seafaring people who lived to the north of ancient Canaan, the land conquered by the Israelites. The visitors, who were followers of the ancient Meta religion, founded the pre-Christian Celtic religion of the Druid priests, and built Stonehenge as a place of worship. Stuckley's wildly errant calculation of the monument's age was based on his belief that the builders understood the principles of magnetism and had aligned the monument with the magnetic north, which he assumed oscillated in a regular pattern. As later researchers discovered, Stonehenge was actually far older than the Druids. Stuckley was, however, the first to try to connect Stonehenge's location and design to natural phenomena. Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer, a renowned English scientist and astronomer, developed a theory that the ancient temples were aligned according to the position of the sunrise at the time they were built. In 1901, he wrote a paper in which he assumed that the portion of Stonehenge, known as the Heel Stone, had been originally aligned with the summer solstice, and on that basis calculated, incorrectly as we now know, that the monument had been built in 1800 BC. Stonehenge, which was built in several distinct phases from 3100 to 1100 BC, is one of the most impressive megalithic monuments in the world, on account of the sheer size of the menhirs, some of which weigh 50 tons, and especially the perfection of the plan, which is based upon a series of concentric circles, and also because of its height. From the third phase of construction on, large lintels were placed upon the vertical blocks, thereby creating a type of bonded entablature. The architectural qualities are highlighted by the use of two different materials, irregular sandstone blocks, called sarsen, quarried in a plain near Salisbury, and the blue stones quarried about 200 km away in Pembroke County. The monument visitors see today still inspires awe and admiration. Stonehenge attracts some 800,000 visitors a year, and thousands of people gather there to watch the sunrise on the summer solstice. The surrounding landscape is also fascinating. The whole World Heritage Site covers more than 2,600 hectares, and includes 415 protected archaeological sites. Not far from Avebury are a number of sites that have been inventoried, and for the most part already excavated. They testify to the fact that during the Neolithic era, this zone was every bit as important as Stonehenge. Woodhenge is a late Neolithic and early Bronze Age monument, originally made up of a series of concentric circles of wooden poles within a circular bank and ditch. It is of similar size to Stonehenge, and lies between Larkhill and Amesbury. It has conventionally been dated to about 2300 to 2000 BC, making it contemporary with the building of the stone circle of Stonehenge. West Kennet Longborough is one of the many prehistoric monuments that are part of the Avebury complex of Neolithic sites. It is one of the most impressive and well-preserved burial chambers in Britain, as well as one of the most visited. The mound itself, of which the burial chamber is only a small part, stretches for 100 meters in an east-west orientation. The earth used in its construction was taken from two trenches dug alongside the mound, although these have long since become filled with weathered material. The chamber, which extends 10 meters into the mound, consists of five separate chambers, two on either side of a narrow passage, which then opens up into a further chamber at the far end. Like many of these passage graves, the entrance was flanked by a semi-circular forecourt, which framed the dark opening. Silbury Hill, near Avebury, is the largest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe. A large and grassy conical hill with a flat top, it was created about 2660 BC and stands 40 meters high, though its purpose remains unknown. Despite centuries of study and excavation, it remains one of the most enigmatic of British prehistoric sites. At Overton Hill, the ridgeway climbs gradually to the Barbary Castle Iron Age Fort. Along this section are characteristic sites of small clumps of beech woodland, planted by the Victorians as landscape features and to give sheep some shelter. Some clumps are even planted on top of Brown's Age round barrows, a practice frowned upon today because of the damaged tree roots due to the ancient monuments. The countryside is a mixture of arable land, changing color with the season, and areas of sheep or cattle grazed grassland. Traditionally known simply as the sanctuary, this is a complex late Neolithic site with the major phase of construction occurring in about 2500 BC. The sanctuary is comprised of a concentric arrangement of wooden and stone posts. The location of the post holes is marked by concrete marker stones, which, while missing much of the atmosphere, well-preserved stone circles, does help visitors to easily view the layout of the site. The site was originally built in an arrangement of two concentric circles of stone and four timber posts. The outer circle was 40 meters across and contained 42 stones. Stonehenge and Avebury are among the most famous groups of megaliths in the world. The two sanctuaries consist of circles of menhirs, arranged in a pattern whose astronomical significance is still being explored. These holy places and the nearby Neolithic sites are an incomparable testimony to prehistoric times. Avebury, though not so well known as Stonehenge, is nevertheless Europe's largest circular megalithic ensemble. Its exterior circle comprising some 100 menhirs covers a perimeter of 1.3 kilometers. It also has two tangent circumferences within the large circle. In all, 180 standing stones were put into place before the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, as demonstrated by abundant ceramic samples found on the sites. Many travelers prefer the more atmospheric Avebury, with its peaceful village setting. The Avebury Parish Church was significantly enlarged in the late 12th century, which was about the same time as a church revival that finally suppressed the lingering pagan beliefs that had survived until then. In the 13th century, the church's dedication was recorded as All Saints, but now bears a dedication to St. James. Avebury is part of a wider complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments, with many other ritual sites in English heritage care. This extraordinary assemblage of sites seemingly formed a huge sacred landscape, whose use and purpose can still only be guessed at. Avebury and its surroundings have, together with Stonehenge, achieved international recognition as a World Heritage Site.