Avebury....... .........A Lady In Waiting
Gone or missing are the bulk of the original sarsen stones laboriously and painstakingly dragged up from the Marlborough Downs and erected in the Great Circle; The West Kennet Avenue; the Sanctuary and the worst affected, the Beckhampton Avenue where only one sarsen remains stood. The ditches of both the Great Circle and Silbury Hill have been allowed to silt up and now left to our imaginations as to what they looked like when first completed. How sad that a belief that was so powerful in its time has been so badly desecrated or left to its own erosion by time, or by latter beliefs, profit and prejudices.
How disappointed the builders of the Avebury Complex would be if they were to return and see what had happened to their work since they constructed it some 4,500 years ago.
Their reward for the time spent toiling under what must have been the most arduous of working conditions at times would be to observe how more modern man had piece by piece ripped apart much of their lifetime’s work and beliefs with it.
In contrast, we must see the sarsens that were buried instead of being broken up as fortuitous in hindsight. With modern detection equipment they are slowly being rediscovered and lie in wait for us to re-erect them in their original positions. Without a single doubt this is what the public would love to see and if money and time are set aside for this project then it must be done. We must never underestimate how hugely important the Avebury Complex was and its preservation and reconstruction where possible with original buried parts is paramount.
Almost cynically it would seem, many of the missing sarsens that were removed and broken up from the Great Circle have been used to build some of the very houses, cottages, foundations and walls seen within the circle and village today. What at one stage was so important to the people of its time was now seen as nothing more than useful building material. I can only liken it to demolishing a high profile cathedral and using the rubble to lay the foundations of a country road!
To my surprise, but delight of course, is that we are still allowed the privilege of walking around the Complex at will to see first-hand what our amazing ancestors built for themselves. In fact, in all probability, we possibly have more ‘freedom to roam’ than they ever had because of what the Complex represented in its time. Without doubt it would have been a very holy place with very limited access to common man once each stage of its construction had been completed and put to use.
It is to be hoped that if the Avebury Complex continues to be shown the respect deserved of it seen over recent years by the more informed public, then this freedom to roam, now lost at Stonehenge, will continue for many generations into the future. Let’s keep it that way so those future generations are given a chance to ‘feel’ the vibes and sense of pride one still experiences today as you understand and appreciate first-hand what our distant ancestors built for us as we wander amongst their Megalithic Masterpiece.
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