So here it is. Avebury. Stuff of myth and legend. I’ve shied away from this site for a while now, slightly terrified of the baggage with which it comes.

One of the biggest and most complicated Neolithic sites in the UK, only Stonehenge is better known. It’s part of the wider Avebury landscape, which includes Windmill Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill, among others.

The Avebury site itself consists of an outer circular bank and ditch, wrapped around a huge circle of standing stones. Within that outer ring lie two more stone circles, one to the north and one to the south. Within those are more stones, including the massive stones in the “Cove” within the north circle.

There are four entrances/exits to the outer stone circle, one of which lies at the end of the West Kennet Avenue a (processional?) avenue of standing stones running from West Kennet to the south.

It ought to be magnificent, and is, but it’s hard to wrap your head around the sheer scale of the site at ground level. And spoiler, there’s a village smack in the middle of it, with roads right through the circles where the ancient entrances were. It’s… weird. There are lots of missing stones (mostly broken up to form much of the village), which only adds to the confusion at ground level.

I visited twice over two days, once to take photos and shoot some video, and then the next to sit and write the music. On the first visit, I was doubtful that the piece would actually happen. I couldn’t find the vibe. It was only the next morning, early, with the site shrouded in fog, that I began to get it.

I’d walked out to the avenue to the south, where I started to get a feel for the sheer theatre of the place. Walking down the avenue towards the stone circles, it turns slightly as you get close, and 5000 years ago, that must have been an incredible experience as the majesty of the circles came properly into view. I imagine it with beating drums, chanting, and all the anticipation of whatever was about to happen. That avenue was made to be walked, the tension building with every step until you arrive at the outer banks and ditches, then the outer ring of stones and then finally the inner southern circle, and then… well who knows, but I bet it was pretty intense.

For the piece, I had in my head a notion of circles within circles, and something immovable and monolithic. I’m not sure that ideas was exactly realised, but doing the post-writing check of wandering around the site wearing headphones, it seemed to work well.

Here’s the piece:

And the trailer film…