Only one of two long avenues of paired stones leading towards the vast temple at Avebury survive. The remaining stones still standing and re-erected on the West Kennet Avenue form an impressive ritual route for pilgrims on their way to the ancient circles.

For almost 2.5 km the silent stones reach over the undulating landscape of the Marlborough Downs, and though the avenue alone forms an impressive monument in its own right, you can sense the building anticipation for the almost incomprehensibly large banks, ditches and stones that await. The effect is still quite powerful even today, thousands of years later.

The avenues were most likely built after the structures at Avebury, almost nothing remains of the similarly sized Beckhampton Avenue which approached Avebury from the south west.

Both of these photos were taken after the full moon rising in the early hours of a clear June morning.