Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

...but only for the day. This is a nice little story -

“...the idea of the project was to show children that history did not start with the Romans, Anglo Saxons and Vikings, as history books sometimes depict, but much earlier with the people who built the great monuments like Avebury, Silbury Hill and Stonehenge more than 4,000 years ago.

“Under Mrs Swanton’s guidance children from St Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary School in Swindon built an exact replica of one of the buried stones in the Kennett Avenue and used their paper-covered chicken wire “stone” to fill in one of the gaps in the avenue – but just for one day.”

More here - http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/9165931.Youngsters_build_on_pre_history_at_Avebury/

Good for them. It looked like a 'female' stone...I hope its opposite number was one of the boys to keep the story alive!! :D

I miss the tree avenues, perhaps more tree planting would be popular? If Avebury is the great nemeton,sacred grove of the druids then would of been loads more trees, woods,groves and clearings with the cove in middle. Maybe a big hedge on the top of the banks? They found the shrines to Nemotina godess of the moon and Mars appollo at Bath, known to be the site of another Nemeton. Miss the trees though. Keiler in his clearance restoration Zeal dynamited trees i seam to remember.
Dont like the white rendering, but whats underneath? you may find there was a good reason for putting it on and the brickwork is dodgy.
the social club maynot be too attractive but hiding it would certainly not improve its profitability.
Would advocate putting up the buried stones though.

I'd love to see the stones re-erected for what I consider three good reasons. Firstly, other than being returned to their rightful place after being hauled off the Downs or wherever they originated from, it would give us a further opportunity to carry out live experiments in the lifting, moving (for more than a few feet in some cases) and erecting of them in what we believe could have been the methods used by our great ancestors. Thirdly, and maybe the most important, the pure archaeology involved in the finding and re-escavating of the stone holes. And wouldn't it look great to see more pieces of the jigsaw in place.

[quote="Sanctuary"]I would like to ask an 'Avebury' question. In the Alexander Keiller Museum it says that one of the worst offenders for smashing up the stones was someone from Berwick Bassett and I noticed on my last walk that the church at Berwick Bassett is built of sarsen. Does anyone know know if these were Avebury stones?

I think this is perhaps a reference to Caleb Baily, owner of BB manor, but the sarsen nave there was constructed centuries prior to the birth of any of the named stone breakers.

I think this is perhaps a reference to Caleb Baily, owner of BB manor, but the sarsen nave there was constructed centuries prior to the birth of any of the named stone breakers.