UK Trip Day 30 Avebury

Avebury Rings with Carmel & Nick

It was exciting to catch up with Nick and Carmel Hall, friends from Australia who are now living in the UK in nearby Swindon. They'd invited us to lunch with them at their unit, then suggested that we visit Avebury Rings together.

On our way to Swindon we found the signpost to Cricklade and turned off for a quick look as we had time in hand. Cricklade is a very pretty little town and we could see the tower of a church in the distance, so we walked towards that. Cricklade is an old Saxon town so that things date pretty far back. The origins of the church go back to the 9th century (the present structure is 12th century)

 

St Sampson church at Cricklade

 

Cricklade is also the source of the River Thames - it's just a bubbling stream at source. We found out after our visit that this source is actually located in a meadow some way out of town so we didn't actually see it! We were more inclined at the time to find a teashop but didn't find that either, so on to Nick and Carmel's (well there were one or two places, but they were not all that enticing).

We found them easily enough thanks to the GPS on Susan's car. They were both looking exceedingly well and their unit is rather nice and very well situated being a stone's throw from a large shopping centre. It only takes them just over an hour to get to London and it's also well-placed to visit both their daughter Jocelyn and son Brendon who both have gorgeous little one year old girls. The grandparents are delighted to be so close.
After a delicious home made lunch, which was initially going to be a picnic but given the heat of the day was eaten instead inside under the fan, we went off with Nick and Carmel to Avebury. But not, however, before Nick had put his new open-topped sports car VW EOS through its paces .... automatically opening the hard roof to turn it into a convertible at the touch of a button. Seeing it you can see why he's named it the Batmobile - all it's missing are a few guns and rockets.
And the fan! This was the first fan we'd come across since leaving home - it's been sweltering overnight without one - how do my fellow Brits cope?

When we got to Avebury it was heaving with people. Duh! It's the day before summer solstice and great hordes of people were already camped out in a bivouac of tents to celebrate the occasion tomorrow. There seemed to also be a posse of police and bouncers to keep the crowds under control, but we saw no signs of trouble. (Peace, man).

Dovecote at Avebury Manor

Inside the dovecote

We parked in the car park using our new National Trust car sticker for the first time and were also able to access the interactive learning centre housed in an old converted barn on the site. It was really interesting, giving info on how the Avebury stones were moved into position so long ago. To this day no-one fully knows why.

Then we all went out for a walk around the large fields where the stones are open to the public and the grazing sheep who find them very useful as scratching posts. It was a very pleasant walk and John climbed up on one of the man-made hills to take photos from this vantage point. These barrows held bones beneath them, but the largest of all, nearby Silbury Hill appears to have nothing buried beneath it. At least not that they've discovered yet.

At the Avebury Rings

The Avebury stones make a great scratching post for sheep

Carmel, Barb and Nick

John atop a barrow

There were some modern day druids spruiking to busloads of tourists, who showed varying degrees of interest ranging from boredom to mild. We on the other hand were on a mission to find the excellent ice-cream that Nick had told us was marvellous. It was pretty good. Loyally I prefer Colin James ice-cream back in Maleny.

Modern day druid

Ice cream shop!

We drove on to the nearby town of Devizes where Nick wanted to show us the canal lock system. Apparently there are nineteen in a row in this particular section of the canal. We watched a canal  long boat come through a couple of them. The driver was lucky enough to have several teenagers on board whom he could send ahead to open and close the locks for him. The boys were hot and sweaty having repeated this procedure numerous times in the preceding several hours. It's quite hard physical work and there are no lock keepers to do it for you as there are in some parts of the Continent's canal system.

I don't know how Susan and Geoffrey ever managed it when they had their canal boat several years ago. I suspect that they couldn't do it now. Barb certainly wouldn't be able to manage the lock gates single handed .... or possibly manoeuvre the boat into the lock without bashing the sides.

We had a brief look around the town of Devizes too. It has an old and very large brewery right near the canal. John found a store selling spray on wax for Barb's coat purchased in Yorkshire. He is happy. As will Barb be when the wax wears thin and it starts raining!