Going South (1) Avebury Vs. Stonehenge

We were heading for Dorset, but our first stop was in Wiltshire at the huge prehistoric henge monument that dominates and defines the village of Avebury. It includes one of the largest stone circles in the world, well over 1000 feet in diameter, built over a period of a thousand years by 40 generations of Neolithic Britons. Long before the Parthenon, the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China were even rough sketches on a slate, the ancient Aveburians were heaving stones so big you'd struggle to lift them with a JCB today across vast distances to create this strange monument to the unknown.

Nobody knows why they did it or what it was for, it all happened so very long ago that no written record exists; we can only guess at its purpose or significance. Later residents would demolish and dispose of much of the monument, believing it to be the work of the devil, but fortunately large sections were saved and re-erected in the 1930s by a dedicated archaeologist named Alexander Keiller. The Avebury museum is dedicated to Keiller and his work and features a collection of Stone Age relics such as axeheads, flints and - most impressive of all - calcified dog excrement, proving both that man's best friend was a loyal companion even five millennia ago, and that white dog shit wasn't purely a phenomenon of the 1970s.

The best thing about Avebury is the open access for everyone. You can walk the ancient circles and lay hands on the monolithic stones, getting a real sense of the history and mysticism of the place. Sheep graze amid the henge itself and it's all refreshingly uncommercialised. You can't help but be dwarfed by the scale of the place - in size and age. Avebury made me feel like a gnat flitting about the vast forest of history. But it also made me feel connected to something larger and older, as though its ancient architects were reaching out and communicating to me across the years. My life would be just as unimaginable to them as theirs is to me. There's something oddly reassuring about that.

By contrast, Avebury's far more famous yet smaller and younger cousin left me cold. Perhaps I'd been spoiled earlier in the day, but everything about Stonehenge proved a disappointment. From its featureless moorland location on the junction of two busy A-roads to the armies of tourists queuing up for the expensive luxury of a guided tour around its outer border, this iconic symbol of the British Isles might well have been a polystyrene film set. I wondered how many of those visitors would drive away commenting that it didn't look like it does on the telly or that it really was nothing more than a huge pile of carefully arranged rocks. There was no magic to be felt here, Stonehenge couldn't ever live up to its own legend.

The Devil's Arse

To celebrate our fifth anniversary, I took Louise somewhere really special. Somewhere she's always wanted to go. Somewhere that's the epitome of romance, sophistication and glamour. Forget Paris, Rome or Hawaii...

I took her to The Devil's Arse.



Set in the Peak District town of Castleton, directly below the medieval Peveril Castle, the Devil's Arse boasts the largest natural cave entrance in the UK. The tour guide explained how the cave itself often floods and that in days gone by, the noise of the flood waters draining away was thought to sound like Satan himself... passing wind.



During the 17th Century, the cave was home to an entire settlement of rope-makers who lived there rent free. In a dark, slimy, smoky, dingy hole in the ground, prone to flooding. Kind of like Bradford, without the urban garden.



The tour took us deep into the cave, through a 3 foot high tunnel and into a large chamber with a huge drop known as the Devil's Cellar, from which, legend has it, you could hear the River Styx below. We tried, but all we could hear were the annoying children who'd been dragged along on the tour by their parents and the chuntering of the miserable Man At The Back who didn't like that the tour guide directed most of his explanations at the kids and appeared to be auditioning for a job as a presenter on C-Beebies. (In a rather surreal moment, there was a video playing old Dangermouse episodes for kids to watch while they waited for the tour to start. Something else the parents were far more interested in than their offspring.)



That said, it's a fascinating place to visit, and the idea that the cave itself was created by the limestone remains of millions of tiny sea creatures compressed together millions of years ago - south of the equator - continentally shifted over the centuries to create a huge cavern in northern England... well, when you think about that, it boggles the mind.



Anyway, never let it be said I don't know how to show my lady a good time. Romance is alive and well... and living in The Devil's Arse.