Fortified with sausage rolls and knowledgeable about the height of stone engineering, we departed for the much larger though less famous henge to the north: Avebury. I had never been to Avebury and this is a much different experience from Stonehenge. On the way there we admired various houses with thatched roofs which we were surprised to see, who knew people were still using that tech in earnest there in the UK. Eventually we arrived at the Avebury parking lot and walked the short path on down to the museum.

Avebury is quite the spot. It is the largest stone circle in the UK, so large that the town of Avebury sits inside of it. Which, is that where you would put your house? Wild, people just moving into the middle of the thing. The stones themselves are impressive for having been propped up despite their size, but the stones aren’t really the main attraction of Avebury since there isn’t any of the architectural stacking that you get at Stonehenge. Instead what is most impressive about Avebury is the massive earthworks. Their full extent is only evident via archeology, but even today when they are a shadow of their former selves it is still astounding how much soil and chalk they moved to construct the place. You get a hint of this as you walk down the path to the museum and necessarily make your way through a cut in the circle.

In the museum, which is small but good, they have a number of artifacts on display from the henge. Despite its magnificence and proximity to Stonehenge there were not many people at all visiting so you could take your time strolling through. I was most interested in some of their experimental archeology, specifically how to decorate ceramics with small bird bones, so make sure to keep that technique in your back pocket, ceramicists.

From the museum we set out on the path around the circle. You have to be careful crossing the street as the circle is bisected by the road and town. The houses obscure a bit of what the site would have been, where the earthworks created a place apart from the surrounding landscape. The ditch itself has been filled in by time some, as alluded to above, but as you hike up the ridge you can get a sense of the scale of the place. But the most exciting part, especially for my super amazing wife, is that whereas Stonehenge was surrounded by sheep, here the sheep were inside, amidst the stones. That is a significant point in Avebury’s column. We spotted from afar one particular sheep using a standing stone to give its butt a really good scratch which, amazing, a compression of the ages, the past comes alive, the works of these ancient peoples slamming into the present day as a sheep uses their handiwork to just really get at a hard-to-reach itch. Incredible.

Also like Stonehenge, Avebury is set within a larger landscape of ancient monuments. Our circumnavigation complete we checked out some of the Avebury shops and then departed for the four-minute drive to the path for the West Kennet Long Barrow. Across the street where you park is also Silbury Hill, which I didn’t think would be so significant when I read about it, but in person is quite the thing. Its regularity sets it apart and it really is pretty gigantic, monumental as it were. You walk away from it as you hike up the path through the barrow. To get there you have to cross a field of cows which frankly was a delight, two of them accompanying us across the bridge. On our way up a person descending pranked us a bit by telling us the barrow was about to close, so we hustled on up, but it doesn’t close, it’s just sitting there on top of the hill.

The barrow is pretty neat. There are explanatory signs and you can walk inside which maybe is weird because it was a tomb, but very cool to be so close to history. You can also walk on top of the barrow to get the widest views of the landscape; the rolling hills are really gorgeous and you can ponder the connection between Silbury and the barrow and what it meant to these people. But about this time we were needing to get back so we walked back on down the hill and said goodbye to our cow friends before making the drive back to Bath. Dinner was at Thai Weir, which has just fine Thai food but a great location right beneath the Pulteney Bridge, and we reflected on how easy it was to drive through 5,000 years of history and have your meals span everything from a full English breakfast to a green curry dinner.