WESTBURY is famous for its 'white horse' landmark, cut into the chalk hill overlooking the town.

white horse

this was taken from the roadway in the car at 60+ MPH

Avebury is in Wessex, 40 km (24 miles) north of Stonehenge in central-southern England on the chalk-land of Wiltshire

This World Heritage site comprises an enormous circular earthwork, 400 m wide, with deep external ditch whose circumference is over 1200 metres.

From Avebury there run two stone avenues, each of which had about 100 megaliths. Altogether there were some 600 megaliths including those of the Sanctuary.

Ang & I love the rock!

The stones are sarsens from Eocene sandstone beds 26-million years old.

Hey

Inside is a 400-metre diameter circle of immense standing stones, and inside that there are two more stone circles each 100 metres in diameter.

Sazzens

In the Wiltshire dialect the stones are known as sazzens or sassens, which is the same pronunciation as in Hindu India where it is their name (via Sanskrit) for their prehistoric stones.

Look at me

The origin of sassen may therefore date from pre-Indo-European times, i.e. the Megalithic Era. In India such megaliths are traditionally associated in belief and ritual with Mahadevi, the Great (Maha) Goddess (Devi)

Avebury's first stones were being assembled from about 2800 BCE, and all the stone circles, stone avenues and earthworks went up during the ensuing 5 centuries.

Inside the great circle two stone circles were created which seem to have been temples.

They both had additional stones positioned as central settings. The North Circle is centred by a Cove whose axis is aligned on the midsummer sunrise.

The South Circle was centred by a high phallic stone -- The Obelisk -- one of whose functions was, it is argued, to identify by shadow-casting the chief festival dates of the Neolithic agricultural calendar.

Chillin on the hillin

Begun in the agricultural Neolithic Age, Avebury was completed in the Early Bronze Age by a community (the so-called Beaker Folk) noted for setting drinking vessels (beakers) in the graves with their dead.

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The Obelisk was destroyed soon after 1725; a short concrete replacement today marks the spot.

Hey Henge

hold still

Pretty Flowers

AHA CHEW

AWWWWWWWWW

big rock

Pub

The Turtle

The Wrath of God

Painter

Owl nest?

Bee Dance

Silbury, the biggest prehistoric artificial mound in Europe

Silbury, the biggest prehistoric artificial mound in Europe, can be adequately regarded and photographed from nearby viewing areas, but access to the hill is not permitted.

SILBURY HILL

Carbon dating suggests that Silbury was built about 4300 years ago, at the end of Avebury's lengthy stone-building period (Alasdair Whittle, Sacred Mound and Holy Rings). The height of Silbury is 40 metres (130 feet), diameter 160 metres (522 feet) at the base, and the monument covered 2.2 hectares (5.5 acres).

Lemon Head

I LOVE LEMON

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