Stonehenge and City of Bath

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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 is where the day begins. Next is Avebury and Associated Monuments.

2. 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 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is City of Bath.

3. 3. City of Bath

   Bath is one of the few whole cities on the UNESCO list, and it earns it twice over. Underneath lie the Roman baths of Aquae Sulis, built around the only natural hot springs in Britain, where water still comes up at around forty-six degrees and the great pool, with its later colonnade above, steams in the cold. On top sits the Georgian city that eighteenth-century society built when Bath became the place to see and be seen, in honey-coloured local limestone: the Circus, the sweep of the Royal Crescent, the shops on Pulteney Bridge over the Avon and the long elegant terraces climbing the hills.

   Read the complete City of Bath write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach City of Bath. Next is back through Avebury and Associated Monuments.

4. 4. 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, late in the day. Next is Stonehenge.

5. 5. Stonehenge

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   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

   Back at Stonehenge. That is the ride.