Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

A Stukeley quote is quite appropriate here..(sorry if it's been done to death in this topic already)

"And this stupendous fabric, which for some thousands of years, had brav'd the continual assaults of weather, and by the nature of it, when left to itself, like the pyramids of Egypt, would have lasted as long as the globe, hath fallen a sacrifice to the wretched ignorance and avarice of a little village unluckily plac'd within it."

William Stukeley (1687-1765)

Never mind pro/anti cafes, shops and toilets etc campaigns....why not petition for a ringroad to take (major)traffic away from this ancient monument to ensure it lasts another 4000 or so years.

Why not! Because a ring road would do massive, irreparable damage to the Wiltshire landscape and the surrounding archaeology - the Avebury World Heritage site is quite big after all. I agree its not ideal to have the road going through the stone circle though in its historical context it is only during the past 50/60 years that the lorries and untenable amounts of traffic have thundered through. There is also the A4 running between Silbury and WKLB with frequent accidents on that stretch of road because people drive too fast. At least they (mostly) slow down through Avebury.

I don't have an alternative solution, sorry.

I agree with you that the above quote has been done to death, I've read it many times but I disagree about its appropriateness to this topic. William Stukeley was part of the 'upper class' whilst the villagers of Avebury were mainly poor land workers who basically did as they were told. That isn't the case now of course but to some extent their views need to be at least considered. Anyway, as I said before ... I'll leave the politics of Avebury to people with much louder voices than mine.

I gave you a sensible solution to protect the Diamond stone. 20 MPH, no HGV's.

...I concur