Stonehenge, Glastonbury, & Avebury
- Taryn
- 24 hours ago
- 3 min read
About two weeks ago on a 'Free Day' I went on a day trip with stops in Stonehenge, Glastonbury, and Avebury with my classmate, Christine. We woke up at the crack of dawn and took the tube to our meeting site, where we met our guide for the day, Andrew. Fortunately, there were only eight people on the tour that day. Our first stop was Stonehenge and we were early, so hardly any buses were there yet. We took the shuttle up to the site and walked toward the rock circle, which is roughly 5,000 years old and was built by Neolithic people. It was amazing! A fascinating fact that Andrew shared about Stonehenge was that there are three types of stones and they each come from three different locations: the sarsen stones are from nearby Wiltshire, the bluestones are from Wales, and the altar stone is from Scotland.
Something I did not know before this day trip was how many prehistoric burial mounds there are in the area. Apparently there are over 300 mounds or as they are called "barrows" here in a 2-mile radius of Stonehenge and dating back between 2400-1500 B.C. Although, my research paper was about the Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon ship-burial from the 7th century A.D., it was interesting to discover how widespread the custom of mound burial has been in Britain for millennia. We did not have time to walk over to the mounds, but you can get a glimpse of them at the top of the photo below.
Our next stop was Glastonbury as Christine's research was about King Arthur. I did not know much about this town before this trip, but I had heard of the Glastonbury Music Festival. Andrew gave us come background on the town and led us to the alleged grave for King Arthur and Guinevere at the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. Apparently some monks in the 12th century announced that they had found the grave of Arthur, but it has never been proven. One of the striking things when entering the Abbey was a sign reminding visitors to keep their clothes on. The town of Glastonbury was full of crystal and incense shops. And we witnessed female dance circles in the Glastonbury churchyard. It's a very hippied-out town!
After departing Glastonbury we drove up a winding hill in our van, which was terrifying! Andrew wanted us to get a better look at Glastonbury Tor, which sits at the top of the hill. It is a roofless tower that is all that remains of St. Michel's church. On our way to our next stop, the Avebury stone circles, we drove passed a couple of enormous white horse hill figures that are created by carving the horse shape out of the grass revealing the white chalk beneath.
Avebury was fascinating to me as I had never heard of it. This stone circle is much bigger than Stonehenge--with a circumference of just over a thousand yards. It is believed that the purpose of the circle was to aid fertility. The quaint village of Avebury is tucked within the prehistoric stone circle and we had a lovely walk through the fields. Visitors are actually permitted to touch the massive stones, which we did. Below are shots of the picturesque village.
My favorite part of exploring Avebury was seeing the sheep that graze in the fields enclosing the stones. I have seen so few animals on this trip and this was a pleasant surprise at the end of our excursion. The sheep were so nonchalant about people walking near them and they could care less about the massive prehistoric stones around them.
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