The Beckhampton Avenue, which leads westward from Avebury stone circle, is now hardly visited at all compared with the rest of the complex. The serpentine-like avenue ran along the lane that now leads past the church and into the fields, where the two longstones - Adam and Eve - can been seen, isolated against the sky. The avenue eventually ends near where the Beckhampton roundabout is now situated. By 1800 it was almost completely destroyed by men such as farmer Robinson. However, this did not happen before the Lincolnshire doctor-turned-clergyman and antiquarian William Stukeley, recorded its destruction in his charming topographical drawings. Many of the stones since those times have now been ‘rediscovered’.
Avebury ’s more famous avenue - this being more complete - is now known as the West Kennet Avenue. It snakes its way defined by a series of distinctively shaped stones to The Sanctuary, found one and a half miles to the south.
Avebury Henge and Triple Stone Circle is the largest prehistoric monument in Europe, covering twenty-eight acres and encompassing most of the village of Avebury’. This huge and mysterious megalithic monument was built in around 2,000 BC, and w'as undoubtedly used as a ritual and ceremonial meeting place. The importance of Avebury is well illustrated by the complexity of its prehistoric architectural features and the time that it must have taken to build. Four thousand years later, it is still in places up to fifty' feet in height.
The largest of the three stone circles is the outer ring, which followed the line of the ditch. This contained as many as a hundred, forty’-ton stones - twenty-seven now’ remain. Used as a defensive position by both the invading Saxons (a Saxon army road runs through the site) and defending Britons, it is surprising that not much damage to the site w'as incurred until the fourteenth century’. Then, in a purge on paganism by Christian zealots, many of the stones w’ere methodically buried.
World History
