After spending about 5 months living and working in london, we wanted to see a little more of Britain. Around August we left London in our Bug and headed east towards Cornwall.
Our first stop was at
Stonehenge near, Amesbury in Wiltshire. We didn’t really know what to expect so when we saw it in the distance, hardly standing out in the rolling Salisbury plains in South West Britain it looked a little disappointing. As we got closer however, it looked more impressive.
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| Stonehenge from a distance |
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| Approaching the rock formation 1975 |
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| Looking back towards to road |
We parked across the road and walked up the gravel path. We thought there were a lot of tourists, but compared to the present day with much more tourism, and the historic site now only view-able from a distance, and not possible to walk among them as we did in 1975.
We walked around, sat on the massive rocks for a while, and then continued out journey west.
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| The standing stones |
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| A young Australian |
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| Another young Australian |
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| Queues to view the Stonehenge 2015 (Internet Photo) |
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| Stonehenge (Internet Photo) |
Equally interesting, but a little less dramatic are the standing stones at
Avebury. Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest stone circle in Europe. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans. (Wikipedia)
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| Postcard - Aerial View |
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| Postcard - South-west sector |
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| Postcard - South-west sector detail |
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| Postacrd - West Kennet Long Barrow |
Nearby is the West Kennet Long Barrow, a Neolithic tomb or barrow, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill, one-and-a-half miles south of Avebury in Wiltshire, England.
Archaeologists classify it as a chambered long barrow and one of the Severn-Cotswold tombs used for burial. The stone burial chambers are located at one end of one of the longest barrows in Britain at 100 m: in total it is estimated that 15,700 man-hours were expended in its construction. The entrance consists of a concave forecourt with a facade made from large slabs of sarsen stones which were placed to seal entry. (Wikipedia)
Next we stopped at the ruins of
Old Sarum Cathedral dating to between between 1092 and 1220.
Only its foundations remain, in the northwest quadrant of the circular outer bailey of the site, which is located near modern Salisbury, Wiltshire, in the United Kingdom.
The cathedral was the seat of the bishops of Salisbury during the early Norman period and the original source of the Sarum Rite. (Wikipedia)
Although we didn't go there, we did buy a postcard of a spectacular view of the Arch and Stag Rock in Freshwater Bay off the Isle of Wight in southern Hampshire.
Next we stopped at the ruins of Old Sarum Cathedral dating to between between 1092 and 1220.
Only its foundations remain, in the northwest quadrant of the circular outer bailey of the site, which is located near modern Salisbury, Wiltshire, in the United Kingdom.
Although we didn't go there, we did buy a postcard of a spectacular view of the Arch and Stag Rock in Freshwater Bay off the Isle of Wight in southern Hampshire.