Mystical systems
Avebury
Direct answer
Avebury is a Neolithic monument in Wiltshire, England: a huge circular bank and ditch enclosing the largest stone circle in Britain, with two smaller circles and part of a village inside.
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At a glance
- Also called
- silbury hill
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Stonehenge, Henge, Megalith, Ley Lines
Avebury is a Neolithic monument in Wiltshire, England: a huge circular bank and ditch enclosing the largest stone circle in Britain, with two smaller circles and part of a village inside.
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Is Avebury older than Stonehenge?
Avebury is a henge so large that a village stands inside it. A chalk bank and an inner ditch, once about nine metres deep, enclose a round area more than four hundred metres across. Just inside the ditch ran a ring of about a hundred unshaped sarsen stones, some weighing over forty tonnes, and within that ring stood two smaller circles, each with its own setting at the centre.
The henge is the middle of a wider group of works. An avenue of paired stones runs south-east for two and a half kilometres to a vanished timber and stone ring called the Sanctuary. Silbury Hill, the largest prehistoric mound in Europe, and the West Kennet long barrow lie within a short walk. Nobody knows what rites were held here. The scale of the digging, done with antler picks, shows a society able to organise labour over generations.
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What sets Avebury apart
Avebury is a monument to walk in, not to look at from outside. Its ditch lies inside its bank, the mark of a henge and the reverse of a fort, so the earthwork encloses and does not defend. The stones are natural slabs chosen for shape and left undressed, and no lintels were raised. Much of what a visitor sees was stood up again in the 1930s, and concrete markers show where stones are missing. Under one buried stone the excavators found the skeleton of a man of the fourteenth century, with scissors and coins in his pouch.
- Place: Avebury, Wiltshire, about 27 kilometres north of Stonehenge
- Built: about 2850 to 2200 BCE
- Outer circle: about 330 metres across, originally near a hundred stones
- Stone: sarsen, a hard local sandstone, left undressed
- Linked works: West Kennet Avenue, the Sanctuary and Silbury Hill
- Restored by: Alexander Keiller, in the 1930s
Often mistaken for something else: Stonehenge is compact, shaped and lintelled, and is viewed from a path; Avebury has a stone ring about ten times as wide, built of rough slabs, and is open to walk through.
The story behind Avebury
The bank, ditch and circles were built and reworked between about 2850 and 2200 BCE. In the Middle Ages villagers toppled and buried many stones, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries others were broken up with fire for building material. John Aubrey came upon the site while hunting in 1649, and William Stukeley recorded it in the 1720s as the destruction went on. In the 1930s Alexander Keiller bought much of the land and re-erected fallen and buried stones. It became a World Heritage Site with Stonehenge in 1986.
Why Avebury matters
Avebury shows the scale Neolithic builders could reach, and unlike Stonehenge it can be walked through and touched, which shapes how people meet it.
How to read Avebury
Visitors walk the bank and the avenue freely all year; modern pagans gather there at the solstices and equinoxes, and dowsers and ley hunters favour it.
Avebury in practice: an example
A walker can cross a road, pass a pub and a churchyard, and touch three stones of the outer ring without leaving the village street.
Where readings of Avebury go wrong
The meanings given to particular stones, male and female pairs among them, are modern readings. The builders left no account.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- avebury stone circle, avebury henge, avebury stones, avebury wiltshire, silbury hill
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
Is Avebury older than Stonehenge?
The two overlap. The Avebury henge was begun around 2850 BCE and its stone settings followed over several centuries. Stonehenge began as an earthwork about 3000 BCE and its great sarsens were raised around 2500 BCE.
How big is Avebury?
The bank is about 1.3 kilometres round and encloses some eleven hectares. The outer stone circle, about 330 metres across, is the largest in Britain and originally had around a hundred stones.
Can visitors touch the stones at Avebury?
Yes. The site is open land cared for by the National Trust, with free access on foot, and people may walk among the stones. Roads and houses lie inside the henge, so care is needed.
