Avebury: The Living Temple

Avebury is the largest stone circle in Europe. It is also a village — complete with a pub, a church, and a manor house, all sitting inside a Neolithic henge monument that dates to approximately 2850 BCE.

Scale and Structure

The Avebury complex consists of: - A massive outer circle of sarsen stones (originally ~98 stones) - Two smaller inner circles (the Northern and Southern Inner Circles) - A deep ditch and bank (the henge) enclosing ~28 acres - Two stone avenues extending outward (the West Kennet and Beckhampton Avenues) - Connection to the wider ritual landscape: Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow, The Sanctuary

The stones are unworked sarsens — natural boulders dragged from the Marlborough Downs. Their shapes are deliberately chosen: some are tall and narrow (often interpreted as "male"), others broad and diamond-shaped ("female"). Whether this gendered reading is accurate, the deliberate selection of contrasting forms is undeniable.

Walking the Stones

What sets Avebury apart from Stonehenge is accessibility. There are no fences, no barriers, no ropes. You walk among the stones. You touch them. You sit against them.

This changes everything. Avebury is not something you look at — it is something you experience with your body. The ditch is deep enough to alter your sense of horizon. The stones are large enough to create their own weather — sheltered spots, wind-channels, sun-traps.

The Landscape Temple

Avebury cannot be understood in isolation. It sits at the centre of a ritual landscape that includes:

• Silbury Hill — the largest artificial mound in Europe, purpose unknown
• West Kennet Long Barrow — a chambered tomb predating the circle
• The Sanctuary — a timber and stone structure on Overton Hill
• Windmill Hill — a causewayed enclosure, one of the earliest Neolithic sites in Britain

These sites are connected by sight lines, processional routes, and the flow of water. The entire landscape is the temple. Avebury is its centre, not its totality.

Visiting with Intention

If you visit Avebury, resist the urge to "see everything." Choose one stone. Sit with it. Touch it. Notice how it was placed, what it faces, how the light falls on it at different times of day.

The builders of Avebury spent generations constructing this space. The least we can do is spend an hour genuinely inhabiting it.