Avebury, or ABURY, a small village of Wiltshire, 6½ miles W. of Marlborough. It is remarkable as the site of the largest megalithic structure in Britain, and as having in its neighbourhood several barrows and cromlechs of remote antiquity. A large outer circle, occupying a flat area of ground on the south of the Kennet, a diminutive tributary of the Thames, consists, or rather consisted, of a hundred large blocks of stone, placed on end in a circular form, around a level area 330 yards in diameter, bounded by a deep ditch and a high embankment. There are also remains of two smaller stone circles within the inclosure, one consisting of two concentric circles of 43 upright stones, with a meulhir, or obelisk, 20 feet high, near the centre; the other, a similar double circle of 45 stones, to the north-west of the former, with a dolmen in the centre. The stones that remain of this ancient work are not of uniform size; they measure from 5 to 20 feet in height above the ground, and from 3 to 12 in breadth and thickness. The embankment, which is broken down in several places, had originally an entrance to the circle, from which issued the 'Kennet Avenue,' running 1430 yards south-eastward in a perfectly straight line, and 17 yards broad, with a range of blocks on either side similar to those of the circle itself. Of the surrounding antiquities, those which appear most closely connected with the circle are the double circle (155 × 138 feet) on Hakpeu Hill, and a large barrow, or lofty conical mound called Silbury Hill, three-quarters of a mile to the south. It is situated nearly midway between the two avenues, in the line of the ancient Roman road between London and Bath. Close to the base, it measures 676 yards in circumference; the sloping height is 249 feet; the perpendicular height, 130 feet; the diameter of the level area at the top, 104 feet; the space covered by the whole work, over 5 acres. Avebury was included in the Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1882.
Very little was known of Avebury temple and the antiquities in its vicinity till the year 1740, when Dr Stukeley published his Stonehenge and Abury, Two Temples restored to the British Druids; though Aubrey had written an account of them in 1663, by command of Charles II., the manuscript of which still exists. None of the earlier topographers or antiquaries appear to have left any description of them. When Sir Richard Hoare, in collecting materials for his Ancient Wiltshire, examined them in 1812, 72 years after the appearance of Stukeley's work, and 164 after the first survey by Aubrey, a great number of the stones had disappeared, and in many places it was difficult to trace out even the plan of the works. As to more recent inquirers, Mr Fergusson believes that the Avebury circle and Silbury Hill mark the graves of those who fell in the twelfth or last Arthurian battle, at Badon Hill (520 A.D.), whilst Sir John Lubbock assigns Avebury to the close of the stone, or the commencement of the bronze, age. See works cited under STONEHENGE.