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Posted: 03-04-2003 15:21 Post subject: Things to do near Avebury

I will be going to Avebury this weekend and was wondering whether anybody knew of other sites of interest, museums, castles etc around there which could be incorporated into my little family trip Smile

(This seemed like a good place to ask, you all being so knowledgable about ancient stones and what have you...)

Posted: 03-04-2003 19:01 Post subject:

Silbury Hill,West Kennet long barrow, down to Stonehenge or up to Uffington for the white horse. Its a bit early for crop circles but you might be lucky.

Posted: 03-04-2003 21:17 Post subject:

is ther a croppie pub round there?...has murels of crop circles etc?...

Posted: 04-04-2003 00:54 Post subject:

Thanks! The plan is now to go to Avebury, Silbury Hill, West Kennet, Stonehenge, then visit a horse on the way back.

Pub sounds good... we'll need somewhere to stop for lunch, and a croppie pub would be interesting!

Posted: 08-06-2013 10:08 Post subject:

Here's an event which seems to have definite Fortean overtones:

A race to the stones along the Ridgeway
The new 'Race to the Stones' endurance event along the Ridgeway, Britain’s oldest path, promises some memorable sights. Jolyon Attwooll went along for a preview.
By Jolyon Attwooll
2:01PM BST 07 Jun 2013

'It was the giant porcupine coming out of the shadows that stopped us in our tracks.”
When you weigh up the risks of navigating long-distance trails, pre-dawn hallucination rarely figures in the checklist.

But Nick Tuppen, one of the organisers of the new Race to the Stones along the ancient Ridgeway trail, was adamant.
“All of us saw it at once,” he insisted, jogging alongside me during a press preview run last month. “We’d been going for 21 hours on our recce of the course, and it just seemed to materialise out of the darkness. Definitely not a hedgehog. It was like the kind you see on the African savannah.”

I pondered the empty path ahead. As we leaned into a gentle incline away from the North Wessex village of Ogbourne St George, it was hard to imagine a sharp-quilled creature emerging from the bluebells, but I erred on the side of courtesy and decided to stay quiet.

Even without such a cameo apparition, there will be plenty to see along this 100km (62-mile) course. Nick and his colleagues at Threshold Sports – including the Telegraph writer and Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell – could hardly have chosen a more apt route for Britain’s latest endurance event.

Travellers have traversed the Ridgeway for centuries, even millennia, making use of its dry, high ground above the downs. The remains of Stone Age burial chambers and barrows, built by Britain’s first farmers, can be seen nearby; Iron Age forts survey the landscape, bastions of security until the Romans came, saw and conquered. Vikings and Saxons used the route – often as a vantage point – in between skirmishes in the battle for Wessex. In more peaceful times, Welsh drovers herded their flocks towards the Home Counties for auction.

Next month, the latest mob to maraud along the Ridgeway will limber up in the Chilterns, preparing for an epic journey back the other way. This will be a thoroughly modern troop, pushing 1,000 in number, armed with GPS-enabled Garmins, energy gels and Camelbak hydration packs, ranging from elite ultra-runners to walkers on an extended jaunt. At a varying cadence, they will wend their way from the Chilterns into the North Wessex Downs, past the Neolithic tomb at Wayland’s Smithy, above the mighty Uffington White Horse, and by the Iron Age hill fort at Barbury Castle, into the Salisbury plains.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activityandadventure/10105833/A-race-to-the-stones-along-the-Ridgeway.html

More info: http://www.racetothestones.com/

Posted: 30-07-2013 09:56 Post subject:

If you drop into the Barge Inn (the croppies' pub) be wary. Something of a civil war in the croppy community occuring - the Crop Circle Connector discussion forum is now officially closed "forever". It was the best place to get updates and insider info on the formations, but in recent years has descended into the most petty squabbling I've ever seen online. And I've seen some petty in my time.