Walking among the stones
Touch the sarsens and climb the grassy bank with no barriers, something Stonehenge forbids outright.
CC BY-SA 3.0 · Gordon Joly — CC BY 2.5 · Barry Skeates from newbury, UK — CC BY 2.0 · Simon Burchell — CC BY-SA 4.0
The largest stone circle in Britain has no fence, no ticket and no rope: a public road runs straight through it and a whole village lives inside. At Avebury you can lay a hand on a stone raised some four and a half thousand years ago, picnic in its shade and walk the grassy bank that encloses a ring roughly 330 metres across. None of that is allowed at Stonehenge, about 28 km to the south, where the stones are admired from behind a cord. The monument grew in stages through the third millennium BC: a huge ditch and bank ringing an outer circle of sarsen sandstone (originally close to a hundred stones), with two smaller circles inside. Many stones were lost over the centuries: medieval villagers toppled and buried some, and in the 17th and 18th centuries others were cracked with fire and water and carted off as building stone. In the 1930s Alexander Keiller, heir to a marmalade fortune, bought much of the village and its land, dug the stones out and stood them up again, marking the missing ones with squat concrete pillars. His small museum in the 17th-century stables shows what the digs turned up; it costs 7 pounds for adults, 3.50 for children and 17.50 for a family, and while it answers a lot of questions it is not essential to the experience. From Bath this is an easy day trip: about an hour's drive east on the A4 through Chippenham and Calne, and the National Trust car park is a five-minute walk from the stones at 8 pounds for the day (5 pounds after 3pm). Without a car allow around two hours: train to Swindon, then Stagecoach bus 49, which passes through Avebury twice an hour except on Sundays. Most people pair Avebury with Stonehenge on the same day, and Avebury is the one to save for the quiet part of it. The grass is mostly level and pushchairs cope, but the bank is steep and sheep graze among the stones, so muddy shoes are near-certain outside summer. Facilities are deliberately sparse: a small cafe, a shop and toilets in the Old Farmyard, plus the village pub, which you will not need. With time and legs to spare, walk a kilometre and a half south to Silbury Hill, the largest prehistoric artificial mound in Europe, and on to West Kennet Long Barrow, a chambered tomb you can step inside. In winter the museum shuts at 16:00 and the light goes before that, but the stones themselves are open dawn to dusk every day of the year.
Touch the sarsens and climb the grassy bank with no barriers, something Stonehenge forbids outright.
Seventeenth-century stables housing the finds from Keiller's 1930s digs, for just 7 pounds.
A short walk south to Europe's largest prehistoric mound and a chambered tomb you can step inside.
Avebury village, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 1RF
Yes, and some travellers come away preferring it. Stonehenge is more famous and more complete, but you view it from behind a rope on a ticket above 25 pounds per adult, best pre-booked in summer; Avebury is bigger, quieter and free, and children can run between the stones. The two are about 40 minutes apart by car, so the sensible plan from Bath is both in one day: Stonehenge in the morning at your booked slot, Avebury in the afternoon with no slot at all.
You can, but it eats half the day: train from Bath Spa to Swindon, then Stagecoach bus 49 for about 35 minutes to the Red Lion stop in Avebury, roughly two hours each way with the connection, and the bus drops to hourly on Sundays. For a family of four a hire car or an organised Stonehenge-and-Avebury tour is both cheaper and far less tiring.