[Stones] The Great Bank

[Ric]

Hi,

i am no geologist, but it looks like a river-formed
bluff to me - kindly supply the evidence to the
contrary and i will be pleased to read it?

and please let's not re-invent the wheel: i have
already indicated the probably sacred nature of this
site, hard on the ritual enclosures - there is every
reason why someone would mark the location with a
sarsen, if indeed the position of this one does indeed
date from prehistory?

--- NIGELSWIFT at aol.com wrote:

> Ric, it has been used for fly tipping for ages.
> Maybe decades. There are  old 
> bottles in the soil on one side. On the other, when
> I first saw it, there  
> was fresh builders' rubble, massive quantities.I
> stressed that it would ruin the 
>  profile when it got overgrown. No doubt it has now.
>  
> Bluff, schmuff. ;) These are gentle chalk hills not
> given to sudden,  
> almost-detached, very round lumps...
>  
> Its worth going when the moat is full and seeing the
> spring bubbling up  
> within it, pure, beautiful, mysterious. Makes
> Swallhowhead look like a sewer...  

i take this as a very unfortunate simile for the
source of a sacred river, indeed a sacred spring, for
many, many people today?

criticise me freely but please respect all of Avebury,
including the Swallowhead: there are so many out there
who might interpret your words to their advantage, as
an excuse to 'develop' this most special, unique and
fragile part of Wiltshire?

:-|

> Oh, and it opens out on one side to a square
> section. Very striking.
>  
> What's a big sarsen doing on the slope of it?
>  
> Oh, and here's a confession. I think the mound has
> facets, seven or  eight 
> sides, like Silbury. I haven't heard anyone else
> agree mind you. But you  can 
> get a bit of an idea of what I mean from the aerial 
> images.