6^th October, 2013 – Stone circles and monuments.

Back in the car today for another drive out to the countryside.

Our first stop was the Uffington White Horse. There are lots of white horses carved into the white chalky hillsides, and we saw 2 others along our way later in the day, but this one is completely unique - it's in a stylised Celtic style of art and dating back to at least 700BC. It’s oddly hard to see the shape from ground level.

There is a walk in this area called the Ridgeway, a path used since prehistoric times. We did a short section from the white horse.

Our walk was to Wayland’s Smithy – not a character from the Simpsons, but a Neolithic long chamber tomb, oddly like a small Newgrange with its cross-shaped inner chamber topped with a grassy mound and surrounded by standing stones. It’s in a lovely location, surrounded by trees in a peaceful part of the countryside.

You can walk right into the chamber – great for hide and seek.

We made our way  back to the car park. There were several other paths leading off the main track and they all looked very tempting but we didn’t want to risk getting lost.

On to Avebury, a huge Stone Age stone circle, older and much bigger than Stonehenge but not as intricately constructed. This circle is so big that it has a village and a sheep paddock in it.

Several of the stones are missing but there are still enough to give a good impression of what it must have been like. The whole thing is surrounded by a built-up circular embankment which is fun to walk around and climb up & down.

Outside the pub in the middle of the circle, a group of Morris Dancers were doing their thing, with white clothes, big sticks and lots of bells. They were surrounded by quite a group of tourists, but they seemed to be doing it for the joy of it.

There is a museum on the site, explaining some of the history and showing various archaeological finds. It’s in a huge old thatched barn from the 17^th Century.

When you go to see prehistoric sites in this part of England, there’s one you really can’t miss – Stonehenge.

Of course we’ve seen it hundreds of times in photos and on TV, but it really is amazing to be right there. The stones are so big and placed with such precision – the effort it must have taken to build is mind-boggling.

It was a clear, sunny afternoon – perfect for an outing – so not surprisingly it was very busy at Stonehenge. There were a lot of bus tours as well. The site is well set up to manage this though, with access close enough to the stones to get a good look but ropes barring the way so people can’t just swarm all over it.

From Stonehenge, it wasn’t far out of our way to visit Winchester on our way back to Windsor, so we popped in briefly to visit our old friend Sam Jones, his wife Becca and their 3 gorgeous children. It was only a short visit but it was a good one.

Then a drive back to Windsor and a quick dinner – Sunday night is pizza night at home, and since our holiday house has a reasonable kitchen, we were able to keep up the tradition tonight.