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Avebury is Rubbish

S

Snook25

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 19, 2001
Messages
85
Im sure Avebury would have been genuinely atmospheric and tingly before the national trust got their hands on it.

We arrived a couple of weeks ago for a walk and was told the only place we could park was in the national trust car park which cost £5 and was complete with ice cream van and nt membership stand.

We set off on a lovely walk and went to 9 barrow down i think its called which was beautiful and very atmospheric, and only about 3 other people around. We walked a circular route, taking in a couple of fairy rings (is that the right name? Clumps of spooky trees on a hill?), along the avenue of stones (why did they put a bit of road through a section of it??) and into Avebury itself.

Whilst at 9 barrow down i did have a bit of a strange experience, but in avebury itself i didnt feel a thing. I did however feel annoyed at the amount of people, signs, gates, ropes, handy leaflets, gravelled pathway back to the expensive car park etc etc. Although i arrived with no expectations of experiencing anything, i felt sure i would get a 'feeling' about the magic of the place. I left feeling disappointed.

So i have 2 main questions:
1. Has the national trusts sanitising of the site for the benefit of tourists taken all the mystery and magic away from the place; and

2. Has anyone had a similar experience there, or experienced somthing that would prove me wrong?

Id be very interested to hear other peoples thoughts and opinions on this interesting place.

Snook

Soi have 2 questions
 
I can't make a judgement myself, having never gotten out of Australia in my life, but I'd say the atmosphere would have been pretty much ruined by 500 years of people burning the motherfuck out of the stones to crack them.
When I read about that I literally cried. How could you do that to something to beautiful and spiritual? It's like that old 'killing a mockingbird' thing.
That said it wouldn't surprise me if the nt has ruined it further. Governments have an innate ability to rape their countries beauty, be it natural or man-made.
 
I've been to Avebury many times over the years, both before and after it was "touristified". The first time I went on a school trip and there were still a few hand-rails and paths and so on but you could walk pretty much anywhere at your own pace and there didn't seem to be too many people there. The next time I went they'd introduced some kind of museum and cafe affair to go with it but it was still a fairly relaxed place. However I did go recently and, faced with the option of paying £5 for parking when we knew we were only going to be there for a few minutes, we buggered off.

I never really felt anything "magical" there - I sensed a faint air of the physical age of the stones the first time I went there which intrigued me. I suspect, however, with more people and more traffic around these days and the fact that there's a road stright through the middle of them, any magic has long disappeared. :(
 
If you were "annoyed at the amount of people" you could always try going back in winter when the trade from passing holiday makers will surely be almost non existent.

However, this does raise the question of how sites such as Avebury should be managed. I suspect that if they were just left entirely untended they would soon be ruined by vandalism and graffiti. What would you suggest as an alternative to the current state of affairs?

Incidentallly, I must say I have little sympathy with the rather snobbish attitude you seem to find in New Age circles that only card carrying druids or wiccans or home counties shamans should be allowed near ancient monuments. Oh, those dreadful tourists and ordinary people who want to go to Stonehenge just to take photographs! Ugh! How dare they?
 
graylien said:
Incidentallly, I must say I have little sympathy with the rather snobbish attitude you seem to find in New Age circles that only card carrying druids or wiccans or home counties shamans should be allowed near ancient monuments. Oh, those dreadful tourists and ordinary people who want to go to Stonehenge just to take photographs! Ugh! How dare they?
Click to expand...

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Also, wasn't it because of the vandalism of some of the people that believed Stonehenge was rightfully theirs and not the 'Man' and the 'Pigs' that forced English Heritage to step in?
 
I do remember being a bit underwhelmed by Stonehenge. It looks amazing from the road but when you get there it's full of tourist booths and people selling rock cakes in the shape of the stones, etc.

I went to the Rollright Stones a few years ago - at night - and found that far more atmospheric.
 
You are part of the problem

I am afraid it's a tricky one and no mistake. By the very fact you visited Avebury, you made yourself part of the problem.

Visitor numbers to heritage site across the UK have more or less been on an upward trend for the last 20 years. Every one of those people who visit a site want to experience it in one way or another and rightly so...

But the truth of the matter is more visitors = more pressure & damage to the monument and its surrounding area.

I have my own problems with the National Trust, but they are making the best they can of a bad job.

People forget at the centre of Avebury is still a village, and a farming community, the car park stops people parking willy-nilly across the site, and I'm afraid the Ice cream vans & trade stands are part and parcel of the Heritage industry these days.

Most people rock up to Avebury in their car, get out, tramp round the banks, have an ice cream or pint in the pub and then leave. I have had some of the best days out on Windmill Hill & Fyfield Down both within an hours walk of the henge.
 
maybe your expectations were too high, as in searching for an 'atmosphere'.
 
It does make me grin slightly when people go to a place in the height of the tourist season and complain that it's full of tourists.

I'm a member of the National Trust, I have been all my life, as were my parents. I also have issues with some of the things they do, but as a member, I can vote on various issues and make my voice heard.

I don't see what else they can do, other than make Avebury accessible and "tourist-friendly". A lot of the measures put in place are to preserve the stones for the future. If those measures interfere with the spirituality of the circle for some, then that is unfortunate. But if the measures were not taken, I fear Avebury would disintegrate to such an extent that no-one would be able to enjoy it.
 
Blimey - i wasnt expecting such criticism of my opinion. Ill consider myself well and truely told then!

Maybe next time ill visit in the middle of the night in winter which im sure will be a better experience.
 
Well, Snook, you did ask for our opinions. :)

There are lots of good websites giving details of other ancient sites, and OS maps have a lot marked, so they're easy to find. Lots of them are completely untouristy and undeveloped.

I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience at Avebury. I hope you find somewhere else that gives you the feeling that you want.
 
Fizz32 said:
Well, Snook, you did ask for our opinions. :)

There are lots of good websites giving details of other ancient sites, and OS maps have a lot marked, so they're easy to find. Lots of them are completely untouristy and undeveloped.

I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience at Avebury. I hope you find somewhere else that gives you the feeling that you want.
Click to expand...

The Modern Antiquarian is ideal for this. Lots of maps and even google plug-ins.

Also, Gyrtrash advertises his ace-sounding guided walks to sites all over the place in the Earth Mysteries forum. There's a chance he might do something accessible for Snook25.
 
jefflovestone said:
graylien said:
Incidentallly, I must say I have little sympathy with the rather snobbish attitude you seem to find in New Age circles that only card carrying druids or wiccans or home counties shamans should be allowed near ancient monuments. Oh, those dreadful tourists and ordinary people who want to go to Stonehenge just to take photographs! Ugh! How dare they?
Click to expand...

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Also, wasn't it because of the vandalism of some of the people that believed Stonehenge was rightfully theirs and not the 'Man' and the 'Pigs' that forced English Heritage to step in?
Click to expand...

I agree wholeheartedly with both points. Stonehenge has been vandalised for years. And IIRC, Avebury had to be pretty much rebuilt as it was in a ruinous state before it came to look as it does today.

In general, it's probably better to go to any such sites when it's not the tourist season, if you really want to see them when there's going to be less people around.
 
I really like Avebury - I find that despite the tourists it still has a nice peaceful village atmosphere and a fairly calming effect on me. It is especially lovely in the winter, when the ground's all crisp and frosty, and there are indeed far fewer visitors.

I think it is better to walk to some of the outlying bits and not just potter round the stones in the centre - most people seem to just stick to them out of laziness or something.
 
I have been in Avebury in many different situations, from summer days to freezing winter nights, it has no atmosphere at all.

Fyfield down up on the hill is better, it feels very ancient.

Stonehenge is strange and unnatural, obviously artificial and very old. (bit like some of our Roman remains though I would imagine places like the Pantheon would feel similar)

Places I have been that `feel`

Men an Tol, cornwall
Carn Kenijack, Cornwall
Badbury rings (cant remember where)
Caldey Island
 
The Ring of Brodgar is another place that's still got atmosphere.

There's some good sites in Kilmartin Glen too, probably the best collection in the UK, and it's relatively quiet.
 
The ring of brodgar and the rollright stones definitely have a feeling about them.
 
Ring of Brodgar, isn't that some film about and otter?

My coat? Why thank you.
 
Timble2 said:
There's some good sites in Kilmartin Glen too, probably the best collection in the UK, and it's relatively quiet.
Click to expand...
I'm no expert on "atmosphere", which everyone seems to think Avebury is lacking, but I agree wholeheartedly that Kilmartin is an impressive place to visit. All the barrows, the churchyard, beautiful scenery... there was even an overgrown garden behind an isolated farmhouse house with some ancient MGs buried in the long grass. Magnettes, IIRC. Heaven!
 
Badbury rings is near Wimborne in Dorset. I seem to remember seeing a post on here ages ago abut someone who went there and they got that feeling of dread etc and had to scarper fairly quickly.

I agree with peoples points that i probably shouldnt have gone in the summer if i was expecting it to be quiet and peaceful. I just thought that seeing as it had a reputation for being atmospheric i would get bit of a sense of that, and its "ancientness" - i just didnt thats all. Maybe on another day it would be different. I agree that the surrounding area away form the main village is really nice, and we went on a lovely walk ending up back at the village.

Greylien - i hope you werent suggesting i was displaying a snobbish attitude, i was in no way implying that only new age people should be able to visit ancient monuments, of course everybody should be able to. Maybe im just bitter abo having to pay £5 for the car park! £5! 5 bloody £! (maybe i was scottish in another life!)
 
Slightly off-topic, but I visited the Nine Ladies stone circle yesterday, between Matlock and Bakewell, and it was a lovely quiet spot, hard enough to find and far enough from the road to provide a sense of satisfaction at just being there.

Sadly, we arrived seconds after a pair of new-ager tossers, one of whom was banging on his bongo the entire way from his car, and whose companion sat down on one of the stones and proceeded to light joss-sticks and plant them all around the circle. The young lad accompanying them had the decency to look extremely emabarrassed at these two men's behaviour.


Oh, and while I'm not going to put in a disclaimer to the effect that "Some of my best friends are New-agers", I'm not trying to tar everyone in that group with the same brush, either. It's just that you'd think that the best way to appreciate a mysterious piece of bronze-age architecture would be in quiet comtemplation, not by playing drums and burning dodgy-smelling sparklers. No, these two were tossers, all right.
 
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