Avebury
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Avebury

Avebury

Wiltshire village built inside Europe's largest stone circle, with lanes, a pub, and a church among the stones.

Avebury is a village in Wiltshire, England, built right inside the largest stone circle in Europe. While Stonehenge gets the crowds, Avebury is in many ways more impressive — the circle is so large that the village, a pub, and a church all sit within it. You can walk among the stones and touch them, something Stonehenge no longer allows.

The monument dates from around 2850 BC and consists of a massive outer circle of standing stones enclosed by a deep ditch and bank, with two smaller stone circles inside. Many stones were toppled or buried by medieval villagers who feared them, and some were broken up for building material, but enough remain to convey the scale of what the Neolithic builders achieved.

The Alexander Keiller Museum in the village explains the site's history and the 1930s excavations that uncovered many of the buried stones. A walk south along the West Kennet Avenue — a processional route lined with paired stones — leads toward Silbury Hill, the largest artificial mound in prehistoric Europe, and the West Kennet Long Barrow, a 5,000-year-old burial chamber you can enter. The Red Lion pub, reputedly the only pub in the world inside a stone circle, is a good place to end the walk.

Guide

Getting There

Avebury is in Wiltshire, about 30 kilometres north of Salisbury and 12 kilometres west of Marlborough. By car it is straightforward: take the A4 from Marlborough and turn north at the Silbury Hill junction, or approach from the north via the A361 from Devizes.

By public transport, the nearest train station is Pewsey (about 12 kilometres) on the Paddington–Westbury line. Bus 49 runs from Swindon to Avebury via Marlborough, but service is infrequent — check times before relying on it. Many visitors combine Avebury with Stonehenge, which is about 45 kilometres to the south; the two are not easily reached on the same day without a car.

Guide

Things to Do

Avebury's attractions are almost entirely prehistoric. The stone circle itself is the reason to come, but the landscape around it contains half a dozen other Neolithic monuments within walking distance. Allow at least half a day to do the circuit justice.