Stonehenge, Avebury, and St. James

To Yogi Berra is attributed the quote, "Nobody goes there any more. It's too crowded." Actually, it's an old line, but Berra was fond of it.

Our telephoto view of Stonehenge.

If you advance book for Stonehenge (and its website insists it is necessary), the fee to walk around (but not in) Stonehenge is £19. If you take a chance and just show up, it's €21.10. Parking is £5, refundable on the way out if you bought a ticket.

So some fifty dollars for the two of us buys an experience of one of the world's most famous historic sites, a Neolithic stone circle we believe to have been sacred. The modern experience? Park, pay, pay, shuttle bus ride, walk around the outside the circle with a crowd (a bit like the Kaaba). You can get no closer than about 100 feet, and mostly the permitted approach is about 400 feet distant.

Neolithic circles at Avebury.

I understand the need to control hordes of tourists, and I understand the need for the English Heritage Trust to collect money to pay for the cost of preserving not only Stonehenge, but some 400 other buildings, monuments, and sites.

I also understand tourist burn-out. Some tourist sites in Britain are popular and very crowded. Fine. But add one too many expensive entrance fees, one too many pay-and-display parking fees, and tourist burn-out. It hit us at Stonehenge.

It's late September. No one bothered to collect money at the humongous parking lot which was mostly empty when we arrived at opening time, but half-full when we left a couple of hours later. We discovered it was possible to walk the one and a half mile shuttle bus road to the site for free. That's what we did, and the heavens approved our decision. The rain and clouds cleared, resuming only as we drove away. We had a delightful walk through the open countryside.

English Heritage Trust has done a thorough job of keeping freebie lookers at a distance. Fences and two lime green vested young men at the gate kept folks without tickets away. It takes a telephoto lens to see the parade of people walking around a respectful distance from the stone circle.

Upon our return to the large visitor center, we wandered around the recreated examples of Neolithic huts. Inside one hut, three volunteers chatted and showed off recreated Neolithic pottery, thatch, flint tools, and horns. They demonstrated how they ground corn. They were retired men who just did it for the fun. One candidly admitted they would never work there as employees. Apparently, it either wasn't fun or employees weren't well treated. We said we were off to Avebury next. He smiled and approved.

It rained on the 23 mile drive to Avesbury, then cleared up just as we pulled into its English Heritage Trust parking lot. Pay and display. £7. The English woman ahead of us complained. She said she would not tell her husband or he would insist on immediately leaving.

St. James church, Avebury.

Everything else about Avesbury is on the plus side. A World Heritage site that you can touch and feel. Scattered visitors. No entrance fee. Nice cafeteria. (Great sausage rolls and soup of the day.) Freedom to roam around the paddocks littered with sheep doo-doo.

And the village itself, built into one side of the giant Neolithic circle, is also precious. Some thatched roof houses. And St. James church.

It seems that almost every village has an old church. Some, like Avebury, have portions that date back to Norman times. A few, like Avebury, have Saxon portions. It's an amazing experience to wander inside such a church.

Consider this detail from a website:  "Avebury manage[d] to keep its rood screen after Elizabeth I ordered all such screens to be destroyed in 1561[.] Apparently the parishioners disassembled the screen and carefully hid the timbers behind a false wall of lath and plaster against the east wall of the nave. [T]he screen timbers remained hidden until they were found by accident in 1810."

The Avebury rood screen. (from web)

As we left Avesbury, it began raining again. The gods had shined upon us at Stonehenge and at Avesbury.