The biggest stone circle in the world, with a Wiltshire village, a road and a pub sitting inside it
Open accessNational Trust land — free to wander
Big enough to lose a village in, Avebury is the largest stone circle in the world: a Neolithic bank and ditch enclosing an outer ring and two smaller circles of standing sarsens. People built houses inside it centuries later, so the modern lane, the church and the pub all sit within the earthwork. Since 1986 it has formed part of a World Heritage Site, listed together with Stonehenge.
The stones are only the centre of it. This is the chalk country of the North Wessex Downs, stacked with prehistoric monuments, and the circle was raised among them. Silbury Hill, the tallest prehistoric mound in Europe, stands a short way south, once linked to the circle by an avenue of paired stones. The sarsen boulders littering Fyfield Down to the east are the sort the builders dragged into place. The Ridgeway, a chalk track old enough to have carried the people who raised the stones, passes close by.
The National Trust looks after the site, and there is no ticket booth between you and the stones — you can walk the bank and the circles at any hour, free. The village around them has the museum, the pub and the car park. Come early; the lanes fill by the middle of the day.
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