Day Three

Spent most of the morning after breakfast dozing – could not sleep at all. Had we been on the other side of the field things might’ve been better, but there was no room.

Big walk today – from Avebury up the Herepath to the Ridgeway. Last time we did this we turned and joined the Ridgeway to The Sanctuary, this time we crossed onto Overton Down, through the (spookily green) gallops, and on to Ffyfield down.

Completely blown away by this landscape – the river course cutting throught he chalk and the enormous number of remaining Sarsen Stones. This was where the stones for the Avebury circles came from – and some of Stonehenge’s too.

We’d been told there was a very peaceful and spooky copse up here but there were quite a few to choose from. We wandered around for a few hours – happening upon a small poultry enclosure with some very strange signage we couldn’t understand and some electrified fences we understood all too well. We could see roughly were Devil’s Den was, so this filled in the missing pieces of the landscape from our walks of last year.

Trekked back down into Avebury (swift half, and lunch at the Red Lion) and then down the West Kennet Avenue, over the far end of Waden Hill until Silbury came into view. A view that never fails to impress.

Passing the procession of Lammas revellers heading for the henge, we headed for Swallowhead, and found it at least no worse than usual in terms of inappropriate offerings. A circle of small sarsens had been placed beneath the broken tree.

Returning to Avebury, we sat on the southern henge bank to watch the sunset, which I sketched in pen. As this was Lammas night, a good few people had already been out performing some sort of ceremony and they returned to the southernmost inner circle to watch the final moments of the sunset.