Silbury Hill (Sunday 9th April 2023)

Putting my plan to re-photograph the highland cattle in a field near Beckhampton into action I parked at the Silbury Hill car park and crossed the road to take the driveway that backed onto the field they were in. They appeared to have gone but a thick hedge blocked sight of a portion of the field that turned out to be where they were. The good news is that as I walked back a car drove through the gate to go to the farm and instead of stopping to tell me off for being on their land they gave me a cheery wave.
I took some photos of the polyhedronal Silbury Hill, built out of chalk and turf around 2,400 BC, still after recent downpours mostly surrounded by headwater from the river Winterbourne. Nearby are the Swallowhead Springs from which spreads the River Kennet and the Winterbourne. The foreground stream runs west from the Hill, irrigating the fields south of the Neolithic Beckhampton Avenue, which links to the Avebury stone circle and henge..
The earliest Avebury henge and its avenues were constructed between 3,000 BC and 2,800 BC, so now five thousand years old. Silbury Hill is the largest man-made prehistoric mound in Europe. It is 39.6 metres high, 30 metres across its top and 167 metres in diameter at its base. It is estimated to consist of 500,000 tonnes of local chalk and soil and took 4 million man-hours of work to construct, beginning c. 2,660 BC, 100 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza.
All that can be seen of Beckhampton Avenue now is at Longstones Cove, my final stop, as its other stones and features have been destroyed, buried or removed over the centuries. The Longstones comprise, two megaliths known as Adam (see second Extra) and Eve. While I was there I had a chat to a Danish lady who had a Fiat 500 Hybrid, of which I had an interest, but it was a rental recently picked up at the airport so her experience of it was limited.

L.
Tuesday 11.4.2023 (1118 hr)

Blip #3850 (#3600 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #007
Blips/Extras In 2023 #059/266 + #040/100 Extras
Day #4761 (1170 gaps from 26.3.2010)
Lozarithm's Lozarhythm Of The Day #2990 (#2830 + 160 in archived blips)

Taken with Panasonic/Leica DMC-LX100 M4/3 compact

Silbury Hill series
Beckhampton series
Bleeding Obvious Wiltshire series
Landscape series
Avebury series

Lozarithm's Lozarhythm Of The Day:
David Ackles - The Road to Cairo (1968)
After working my way through the Julie Driscoll/Brian Auger box set, I returned to my Best Of compilation CD to hear the tracks on singles that weren't on the albums and therefore not in the box set. These included their biggest hit, Dylan's This Wheel's On Fire, and the follow up, The Road To Cairo. The original version of this was by songwriter, singer and pianist David Ackles, and was to be found on his self-titled debut album, also released in 1968, played and chosen for today's LOTD.

One year ago:
The Woodland Garden (Goldfinch)