In Marlborough: to Avebury

August 25, 2022

Well, why not start the post with a photo of my new haircut again? I could make this a new thing, starting each post this way so we can all watch it slowly grow longer, shaggier and less kempt. Why not!

Maybe not. But I did want to show that with a hint from Bob Distelberg I figured out how to take the shot without the third image whiting out. I hadn’t noticed before that the camera on the iPad has a flash function that only activates in selfie mode. And there’s a setting for it so you can turn it off, but the setting is only visible in selfie mode.

Before we move on to today’s ride, let’s take a look around our room in the Green Dragon, one of the more ‘interesting’ places we’ve stayed. Interesting, but not in a good way. For starters note the refrigerator, which we were delighted to find was a part of the furnishings because it means we can store milk in it and have breakfast in the room, since the inn doesn’t offer breakfast. Rachael of course immediately went out grocery shopping, but when she returned we discovered that the milk would just slide out the door because the floor is sloped so badly.

Problem solved when I grabbed an extra hand towel, folded it several times, and shimmed the front end. We’ve never stayed in a place with such an uneven floor. It’s amazingly sagged in the middle and makes us wonder the odds of it falling through and dropping us onto the bar below. Really, at the worst spot it must slope nearly 10%. It’s disorienting and a bit unsafe walking around on it.

And, speaking of unsafe. There’s the treacherous design of the stairwell to the en suite bath, which is a half flight above. They’re narrow, steep, angled, and slightly sloped downwards; and worst of all, the final narrow stair is tapered to a point. I was shocked yesterday by the thud when Rachael pitched face forward slipping off the bottom step. When I looked up she was sprawled on the ground, one arm holding up the filled coffee pot that she impressively didn’t drop or spill in the fall. Thank heavens she didn’t injure her, then or the second time!

So with all that prelude, there’s hardly any room left to say much about today’s ride, a longish, hillyish loop that took in Avebury and three more Wiltshire White Horses. Just the pics then:

The Green Dragon, in Marlborough. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

We’re barely a mile out of town when we collect our first white horse of the day. The Marlborough White Horse lies in the grounds of Marlborough College and is the smallest horse in Wiltshire. Cut in 1804 by a group of school boys, the horse was desinged by pupil, William Canning.

It’s surprising how many thatched roofs were seeing here. In some villages they’re very common, almost in a majority on the older houses.

Also, many of the thatched roof structures are brick here. Brick is one of the most common building materials.

Well, we should say a few words about Avebury. Everyone is of course aware of Stonehenge, but Avebury might be less familiar to some. Another megalithic site in the same region (Stonehenge, also in Wiltshire County, is only 20 miles away), Avebury is a huge site, a giant circular henge (bank and ditch) containing the largest stone circle in the world.

The site is too large and sprawling to see from the road by bike. You really need to get around on foot, which we plan to do tomorrow. It’s only seven miles from town so we’ll bike out there and take a lock with us this time. So, hopefully we’ll be back with a longer report on Avebury tomorrow. In the meantime you might bone up by reading the Wikipedia article so you’ll have a better idea of what you’re looking at.