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Avebury Residents’ Pack launched

1:52pm Monday 14th July 2008

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Lord Avebury and Time Team's Phil Harding will be at the Avebury Day fete to help celebrate the launch of the Avebury World Heritage Site Residents' Pack'.

The launch will take place beside the banks of Avebury's 4,500-year-old henge on Saturday 19th July.

The pack is the first of its kind produced specifically for those who live within one of the UK's 27 World Heritage Sites.

The Residents' Pack is the result of two years hard work by a wide range of contributors.

In July 2006 the residents of the World Heritage Site were invited to appear in an aerial photograph standing in Avebury's world famous stone circle.

This photo marked the start of the Residents' Pack project.

The Pack is a limited edition designed to celebrate the unique values that make the World Heritage Site such a special place to live.

It includes a book made up of a collection of pieces by people with unique personal and professional insight into the area, including eminent archaeologists, local residents, farmers and pagans.

The accompanying leaflets provide practical information on the roles of the different organisations that look after the World Heritage Site and how residents can get involved.

The Pack has been sponsored by the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding National Beauty, English Heritage, the National Trust, Kennet District Council, the Henge Shop, the Council of British Archaeologists, the Wiltshire Heritage Museum and The Avebury Society.

1. The launch will take place at 4 pm on Avebury Sportsfield on Saturday, July 19th. After some short speeches by Lord Avebury and Phil Harding residents' will be invited to collect their packs. The Avebury Day fete itself begins at 12.30 pm.

2. Avebury and Stonehenge was inscribed on the World Heritage List for their outstanding prehistoric monuments in 1986. Avebury stone circle is the largest in Europe dating back to around 2,400 BC. The henge consists of a huge bank and ditch 1.3km in circumference. The stone circle is surrounded by outstanding ritual and funerary sites dating from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. Other major monuments in the World Heritage Site include Windmill Hill, West Kennet long barrow, the Sanctuary, Silbury Hill, and the West Kennet and Beckhampton Avenues. Avebury and its landscape represent an incomparable testimony to prehistoric times.

3. The Avebury World Heritage Site covers 22.5 square kilometers of chalk downland and mixed arable fields which lie within the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The ownership and management necessary to protect the wealth of archaeological features it contains, is shared between the National Trust, English Heritage, Natural England, farmers, landowners and householders.

For further information contact Sarah Simmonds the World Heritage Site Officer on 01380 734 820 or sarah.simmonds@kennet.gov.uk

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Your Say YourThe Wiltshire Gazette and Herald

walter, wilshur says...
6:51am Tue 15 Jul 08

The wife's mother found this article very nostalgic - after all, she were around when Stonehenge and Avebury were built.

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ric, London says...
9:39pm Tue 15 Jul 08

noting from the article that the 'Beckhampton Avenue' is part of the Avebury WHS - is it not time this unique feature was restored, in view of the pathos evoked by this avenue's 2 surviving stones, out of a possible 100, several of which have now been positively identified beneath a farmer's field?

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Grant, Marlborough says...
10:24pm Tue 15 Jul 08

oh dear, another londoner who wants to restore the whole site and evict the villagers.
No stones at Avebury will ever be restored while it is a WHS.
So some research and find out what being insode a WHS actualy entails.
Anyway the beckhampton stones are on private land not NT land.

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ric, says...
11:47pm Tue 15 Jul 08

Grant wrote:
oh dear, another londoner who wants to restore the whole site and evict the villagers. No stones at Avebury will ever be restored while it is a WHS. So some research and find out what being insode a WHS actualy entails. Anyway the beckhampton stones are on private land not NT land.
Avebury is world heritage - WHS - and belongs to everyone: the Avebury North Cove stones have already been extensively restored, within the WHS era, as has Silbury Hill, and i fully expect the rest of Avebury to follow suit, including the Beckhampton Avenue - possibly the more important of the two avenues, and hence its virtual complete destruction in the 18th century: the semi-ruinous condition of Avebury Circle, this unique monument, is an international disgrace, and it is time World Heritage organisations stepped in and completed Alexander Keiller's bold project to restore Avebury for posterity, just as West Kennet Long Barrow was completely restored in the 1950's, by Stuart Piggott.

Ric

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Grant, Marlborough says...
12:15am Wed 16 Jul 08

sigh.
Your showing your ignorance.
The Cove and the Silbury digs were RESCUE archaeology which is allowewd under UNESCO- WHS rules.
The West Kennet Longbarrow was reconstructed years before the area was awarded WHS status.

You will Never see a single stone re-erected in your lifetime and it probably won't happen for over 100 years if at all.
Ask Mr Mike Pitts.
His 10 plan to erect a single fallen stone(#78) was rejected out of hand.

All the stones discovered at Beckhampton by the Negotiating Avebury Project were left in situ and will never be uncoered again.
Get used to it.
There's no use bleating "Mr Keiller would wanted it."
We live in different times with different rules.
Under current H&S laws Mr Keiller would have been arrested for his treatment of the monument.

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ric, London says...
3:56am Wed 16 Jul 08

with regards to 'rescue' and 'restore', i see no point in debating semantics: remedial work has been carried out on the stones, and this work is to continue. Avebury's stones will be raised up because, as you so astutely point out, we are living in diffrent times: just look around: the Nine Maidens stone circle in Cornwall has been restored, so too the Devil's Quoits in Oxfordshire ~ our Neolithic Heritage is being restored to us, because the times will it, despite 'red tape' and reactionary rhetoric, our stones return, and Avebury will once more be a world class wonder, instead of a vandalised remnant. i feel for Mike Pitts, a good man: those who seek to frustrate his like, delay or deny the restoration of Avebury Circle perpetuate the superstitious ignorance which was responsible for this awe-inspiring monument being wrecked in the first place. If it weren't for Alexander Keiller, there would probably be almost nothing of Neolithic Avebury to see today, and a great treasure of World Heritage would be lost. His restoration was visionary, he had guts, let's hope British archaeology can produce another such genius, to complete the work Keiller was unable to, in his own accomplished lifetime -

and for your information, Keiller is a hero, now as then - the National Trust just ran a 30's 'Keiller Day' at Avebury ;)

Ric

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Grant, Marlborough says...
10:22am Wed 16 Jul 08

"i see no point in debating semantics:"

So stop doing it.
Your obviously a stranger to this area, probably only visiting a couple of times a year.
You've probably got an internet site sonewhere where your screaming out to get the stones restored.
It's not going to happen!

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Grant, Marlborough says...
11:06am Wed 16 Jul 08

as to Keiller being a Hero,
according to his biography he used to climb naked into a wicker laundry basket and ask his secretary to poke him with a stick!

Oh and come to Marlborough and ask locals about Mr Pitts.
There's a few unprintable stories to be told about his behaviour at Avebury!

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ric, London says...
1:32pm Wed 16 Jul 08

Avebury Henge is a World Heritage Site - it is there for the whole world, not just the disgruntled in the world. But as a world attraction, we want to see it, we do not want to see empty fields covering buried sarsen stones, where sheep placidly nibble: you can go anywhere in the great outdoors to see this happening - at Avebury we want to see standing stones, sun-sparkling in the open - as they were intended to be seen - a wonder to tourists, specialists and the wider British public alike: an inspiration, an education ~ standing stones are a multicultural phenominon across the globe ~ something we can all learn from; we cannot learn anything about our common heritage, our shared past, if it is buried beneath the soil: it is not enough to unearth stones, photograph them, and cover them up again - as with the Beckhampton Avenue megaliths, because these stones - all the Avebury Stones - were placed to be seen as part of a dynamic, interrelated complex, which only makes complete sense, taken or experienced as a whole ~ thus, we need to see these stones standing in relation to one another, wherever possible. It shouldn't be down to me - a layman - to explain the archaeologically obvious, but i will continue until Avebury is restored to us, in as good condition as the ravages of the past millennia will permit. yes, there are 'tabloid' stories about Alexander Keiller, and they appeal to a tabloid sensibility, and are irrelevant to this discussion.

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Grant, Marlborough says...
1:42pm Wed 16 Jul 08

in case you hadn't noticed this is a newspaper. (nearly)

Just because Avebury is a WHS doesn't give an armchair critic like yourself a say on what goes on in the village.
Seems your trying to set yourself up as some sort of Avebury martyr.
There is enough ego's floating around Avebury these days.

The stones won't be dug up and erected.
I'd bet £10,000 on it!

This dicussion is about the Avebury Residents and the launch of the information pack not a forum for you and your nutty ideas.
Get over yourself!

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walter, wilshur says...
9:07pm Wed 16 Jul 08

Let's all calm down. The site has existed for 4500 years, and w few more years eithr way won't make much difference. I bet the stones will still be there when we're all dead and gone and life on earth is limited to cockroaches.

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Grant, Marlborough says...
10:10pm Wed 16 Jul 08

walter wrote:
Let's all calm down. The site has existed for 4500 years, and w few more years eithr way won't make much difference. I bet the stones will still be there when we're all dead and gone and life on earth is limited to cockroaches.
and your wife's mother eh?

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ric, London says...
1:18am Thu 17 Jul 08

walter wrote:
Let's all calm down. The site has existed for 4500 years, and w few more years eithr way won't make much difference. I bet the stones will still be there when we're all dead and gone and life on earth is limited to cockroaches.
walter wrote: "I bet the stones will still be there when we're all dead and gone"

i'm conviced you're right, there, Walter; only some of us would like to actually *see* our 'World Heritage', pointlessly buried beneath our feet, currently, at Avebury?

;)

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Grant, Marlborough says...
1:32pm Thu 17 Jul 08

I will be at Avebury on Saturday.
I'll tell all the villagers that ric the cocker-knee wants everyone out of the village and to destroy their homes before they leave.
I'll tell Lord Avebury to get digging and pick up all those buried rocks as well...

I'm Sure they will....

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Grant, Marlborough says...
3:53am Sun 20 Jul 08

well ric I asked.
You should have heard the laughter!

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Daisy, Glastonbury says...
8:28am Mon 21 Jul 08

In a way I think Ric has a very good case for wanting the hidden stones 'restored' at Avebury. Its nice to see a 'Heritage pack' being launched for the residents, though of course as someone has previously said, the Avebury complex has been there much longer than any of us temporary residents on this earth ;).

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Don, Devizes says...
4:01pm Mon 21 Jul 08

Grant wrote:
I will be at Avebury on Saturday. I'll tell all the villagers that ric the cocker-knee wants everyone out of the village and to destroy their homes before they leave. I'll tell Lord Avebury to get digging and pick up all those buried rocks as well... I'm Sure they will....
Since when have all Londoners been Cockneys?

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Grant, Marlborough says...
4:30pm Tue 22 Jul 08

"Since when have all Londoners been Cockneys?"

1996.

Yes it would be nice to see the stones re-erected but with the powers that be that we have now a days it's just not going to happen is it?

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