Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Avebury

This past Sunday, I took a day trip into the English countryside to visit some incredible feats of humanity: the Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge, and the Avebury stone circle. The tour group met bright and early at 9:30 AM (yes, this is early for me), and soon after we divided ourselves onto the two buses. As I climbed into the smaller of the two, the driver said, "Good choice! This bus is much nicer." Had we been in a movie, one might have considered this foreshadowing. About an hour into the first leg of our journey, the larger bus' engine started malfunctioning, causing it to overheat and shut off automatically. Every time this happened, both buses had to pull to the side of the road and wait for the larger bus to restart before we could continue. Fortunately, we weren't far from Salisbury when this started happening. Unfortunately, Salisbury was only the first stop, which meant we had to deal with the intermittent bus for the rest of the trip. Even so, no one seemed to mind. We were on a pretty spectacular trip, after all.

As I mentioned, we stopped first in Salisbury, a lovely town that is home to one of Britain's earliest settlements, Old Sarum. It is also home to the magnificent Salisbury Cathedral, built between 1220 and 1315.

The Salisbury Cathedral

Can you believe all of this was accomplished by 1315? And they call those years the Dark Ages! After some severe body contortion I managed to get a picture of (nearly) the entire building, but the photo definitely does not do it justice. The cathedral punctuates the landscape in quite an impressive way, boasting the second-tallest spire in Europe. The spire is so remarkably huge, in fact, that until the last century the building's architecture could not support its weight appropriately, and the spire leaned slightly to the south.

The Leaning Salisbury Cathedral

The above photo shows the architectural supports sitting directly underneath the spire. It might be difficult to see, but over the years the supports have bowed due to the spire's immense weight. Today, steel reinforcements have corrected the problem (we hope).

The Salisbury Cathedral

The inside of the cathedral is equally impressive and immense. The stained glass, the architecture, the sculpture--the cathedral is a wonderful array of both the ancient and the modern. I could have easily spent the entire day wandering around and absorbing every detail. Yet, the beauty of the cathedral is not the only draw to the site; in addition, its Chapter House has on display one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta. Unfortunately but understandably, photography was not allowed of the document. But, suffice it to say, it was very exciting to catch a glimpse of a charter with such historical significance.

From Salisbury, we puttered along toward our next destination: Stonehenge, "the most mysterious and enigmatic of all monuments" (according to our leaflet). I was beyond excited. After growing up with its ubiquitous image, I could not wait to see it in person. It was a terribly blustery day, of course, but any other weather just wouldn't have fit the occasion.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Experiencing Stonehenge for myself was surreal. When I first came upon it, it felt familiar and even ordinary. But as I circled the immense stones, I became more and more aware of the monument's grandeur. There's something about  physically being in a place that reveals its significance, its power. Absolutely incredible.

After a brief 55 minutes at Stonehenge, we climbed half-frozen back into our buses and made our way to the final stop of the day: Avebury. The Avebury henge doesn't get much press, but it is Britain's largest and most extensive stone circle. The small village of Avebury sits right in its center, so on the ground it is hard to get a good grasp of just how big it is. To give you an idea, it measures about 420 meters across. That's about four-and-a-half football fields! HUGE. Like Stonehenge, the Avebury henge consists of an outer- and an inner-circle.

A 'female' stone at the Avebury henge.

The outer-circle consists of alternating square- and diamond-shaped stones. It has been theorized that the square-shaped stones represent males and masculinity, and the diamond-shaped stones represent females and femininity. The skill it must have taken to place these stones in the ground at that angle astounds me.

The Inner-Circle at Avebury

By the time we had finished our self-guided tour of the Avebury henge, the sun had set and it was time to head back to Oxford. The trip home may have taken twice as long due to the larger bus' troubles, but the tour guide's apologies as we arrived back in town were met with a resounding 'THANK YOU' from everyone who had participated in the day's tours. We had been led on a truly fantastic journey.

Now, I could go on and on and on about this amazing trip, but pictures speak louder than words. If you'd like to check out the dozens of other photos I captured, you can check out the Picasa web album by clicking on the following link: Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Avebury. I have also added them to the slideshow below.




Hope you've enjoyed!
Alyce