Why this ride
From Bath it runs 180 km to Bath; allow about 3 h 33 of riding. On the way it passes Avebury and Associated Monuments, Stonehenge and Associated Monuments, Stonehenge and back through Stonehenge and Associated Monuments.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Bath afternoon · Stonehenge
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 180 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 33
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Bath
The Romans came to Bath because of the water. Hot springs rise here at roughly forty-six degrees, and the legions built a sacred pool and a bathing complex around them in the first century, dedicating the place to a local goddess whom they merged with Minerva and calling it Aquae Sulis. The great bath is still there, green and steaming, below a Victorian terrace of statues. Over a thousand years later the Georgians remade the city in pale golden stone, the architect John Wood and his son building the Circus and the sweeping Royal Crescent, so that the place looks like a stage set for a Jane Austen novel. Austen herself lived here for several years and was not entirely happy about it.
Read the complete Bath write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Bath is where the day begins. Next is Avebury and Associated Monuments.
2. Avebury and Associated Monuments
Avebury is the place where a village grew up inside a stone circle. The henge, a huge circular bank and ditch enclosing the largest stone circle in Britain, was built around four and a half thousand years ago, and the village, with its church, its manor house and its pub, sits partly within it, with a road running right through the middle. You can walk among the stones, touch them, sit beside them, and watch the sheep grazing around them, which is a very different experience from the controlled visits at Stonehenge, its more famous partner on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete Avebury and Associated Monuments write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Avebury and Associated Monuments comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stonehenge and Associated Monuments.
3. Stonehenge and Associated Monuments
Stonehenge looks smaller than people expect and stranger than the photographs, a ring of grey stones standing alone on a swell of chalk grassland with the sky pressing down. It sits on Salisbury Plain, a high, open expanse of downland that was a holy landscape long before the stones. The monument went through phases from about 3000 BC, with the great sarsen blocks raised around 2500 BC, hauled, it seems, from the Marlborough Downs some thirty kilometres to the north. The smaller bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in west Wales, about two hundred kilometres away, which remains one of the most astonishing facts in European prehistory.
Read the complete Stonehenge and Associated Monuments write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
At least about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Stonehenge and Associated Monuments. Next is Stonehenge.
4. Stonehenge
Nobody quite knows why Stonehenge was built, and that is part of its power. Begun around 3000 BC as a circular ditch and bank, it was remodelled over the following thousand years, and the great sarsen stones, some weighing more than twenty tonnes, were raised around 2500 BC. The sarsens came from the Marlborough Downs, about twenty-five kilometres north; the smaller bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in west Wales, more than two hundred kilometres away, and how they were moved remains one of the great puzzles of prehistory. The monument is aligned with the sunrise at the summer solstice and the sunset at the winter solstice, and thousands gather here at those times. With Avebury and the surrounding landscape, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Stonehenge write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Stonehenge, about halfway. Next is back through Stonehenge and Associated Monuments.
5. back through Stonehenge and Associated Monuments
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stonehenge and Associated Monuments write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Stonehenge and Associated Monuments sits at 114 km, about halfway. Next is back through Avebury and Associated Monuments.
6. back through Avebury and Associated Monuments
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Avebury and Associated Monuments write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Avebury and Associated Monuments comes up about 135 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bath.
7. Bath
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bath write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Bath closes the day.
Leg by leg
Bath to Avebury and Associated Monuments
Bath → Avebury and Associated Monuments is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Avebury and Associated Monuments to Stonehenge and Associated Monuments
Avebury and Associated Monuments → Stonehenge and Associated Monuments is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stonehenge and Associated Monuments to back through Avebury and Associated Monuments
back through Stonehenge and Associated Monuments → back through Avebury and Associated Monuments is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Avebury and Associated Monuments to Bath
back through Avebury and Associated Monuments → Bath is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.