<< Web Picks >> Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle

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Neolithic and Bronze AgeCountry: England County: Wiltshire Type: Henge

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Avebury
Avebury submitted by Horatio : The majestic if rather lumpy stone 206 with the fallen stone 207 behind situated in the NW quadrant of the henge. Taken on a cold Winter Solstice day. (Vote or comment on this photo)
World Heritage officials have lost their bid to prevent a clutch of "incongruous and unattractive" houses from being built next to Europe's largest prehistoric stone circle. They say the plan to build five three- bedroomed homes within the World Heritage Site at Avebury would unacceptably harm one of the Britain's most important ancient monuments.

Their views were backed by Kennet District Council's conservation team which said the houses would be seen from the huge bank of the henge and other key locations within the historic landscape.

But the district council on Friday approved the scheme by 11 votes to one, saying it represented a good solution to a difficult problem, even though it went against policies aimed at protecting the historic site.

The plan involves demolishing a former filling station and repairs garage on the Swindon Road, now used for storing vans, which is just 200 metres from the 5,000-year-old monument.

The Art Deco style structure was built in the Thirties to provide local services following the clearance of houses and businesses from within the henge during a major heritage project to re-erect the stones.

However, the scheme has dismayed UK officials who look after Avebury's UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Its letter to the council, they said: "The proposed development is clearly visible from the banks of the henge monument and would have a major impact on its setting, particularly during the winter months when the beech trees are without leaves.

"Although the current garage and its outlying buildings cause a certain level of intrusion, there is no justification for replacing them with housing.

"The WHS is of international significance and its sustainable management is key to safe-guarding its values.

"Simply replacing one visual intrusion with another is not a way to ensure that the site is not harmed."

The council's conservation officer said the scheme appeared to fall foul of a policy that stated "proposals which would harm the historic landscape, archaeological features or visual setting of that part of the World Heritage Site will not be permitted." But council planning officer Andrew Guest said the design of the houses, in the form of a traditional farmstead, fitted the historic pattern of the area.

He said: "Overall, it is considered that the application proposes an acceptable solution to a problem site within the World Heritage Site. By reason of the high-quality design, it would both conserve and enhance the designation, and safeguard the immediate setting of the henge.

"The fact that the development would be visible does not mean it is unacceptable.

"It is a well-thought-out proposal which would contribute positively to the character and appearance of the area."

The site also falls within an outstanding area of natural beauty but is outside the village conservation zone.

Yesterday the chairman of Avebury Parish Council, Jenny Baldrey said it was in favour of the scheme because it would remove an unsightly, semi-derelict feature. She said: "We looked long and hard at this and feel that the scheme is sympathetic solution to a problematic area

"There had been talk of turning the garage into a hotel but nothing came of it."

Article from 2008 - Source: Western Daily Press.

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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Sunday, 13 March 2011
These houses are now built. The look is utterly unattractive, especially the mock barns which look terrible and they are really over priced too! With the trees cut down these carbuncles should be bulldozed and the land grassed over! This will cause trouble at Solstice with the elders!
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Re: Storm over house plan for ancient monument by TerenceW on Sunday, 26 October 2008
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Problem: dilapidated garage site & what to do about it & a need for housing for local people? Oh - let's add vested money interests & outside organizations who think they know best? Then don't forget mumbo-jumbo about gods & sacred sites & the curse of religion, & graft & corruption in the planning process....is that it? Crumbs - Are druids involved in this melange somehow?

Let's face it - the creeps with the money will get their way as they always do. Houses to replace the tawdry garage may not be the best solution but if the families living in these houses will help to rejuvenate Avebury, then OK I'd say. The most important condition should be: build but PLEASE make sure they're designed in such a way as to blend with the predominant architectural style of the village. As long as they don't don't resemble the styles at that god-awful Poundbury I think this is the best that can expected. Avebury might have been an ancient 'sacred site' (who can tell?) but this is the 21st century & a village where modern people live.
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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Thursday, 31 January 2008
The entire area should be cleared of the Pub, the nasty people in them, and returned it its original form. What Next McDonalds and a Multi-story car park in the middle of Stonehenge.

This site has been wrecked by the intrusion of the original house sand "village"
get rid of the lot, and by pass the site altogether.

What next, an airport runway at GIZA?
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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Wednesday, 30 January 2008
What a perfect opportunity to improve the area by getting rid of one modern eyesore to be replaced by another. How short sighte and narrow minded! Money still talks over long term heritage.
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Storm over house plan for ancient monument by coldrum on Monday, 28 January 2008
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Conservationists and locals all agree that that the dilapidated Bonds Garage, and the fleet of second hand vans that surrounds it, are an eyesore that does no credit to the picturesque village of Avebury.

But the proposal to knock down the 1930s garage and house and to replace them with five new houses has set the Wiltshire village (population 486) on a collision course with the most influential conservation bodies in the land and even the world.

The reason is that Avebury contains one of the largest megalithic monuments in Europe and the garage is sited within 200 yards of the outer rim of the stone circle thought to be 4,500 years old.

Houses have existed within Avebury's stone circle - far larger than the one at Stonehenge - since the Dark Ages, making it one of Europe's most remarkable prehistoric sites.

A number of cottages were knocked down in the 1930s by the Dundee marmalade magnate and archaeologist, Alexander Keiller, who also dug up and re-erected many of the stones.

More cottages were removed by the National Trust, current owner of the monument.

It was Keiller who paid for Bonds Garage to be removed from the circle of stones in the 1930s and relocated to its present site north of the village, where it is now backed by a mobile home park.

It remains, however, within the Avebury World Heritage site and that is what has drawn objections to the proposed new homes from English Heritage, the National Trust, the Avebury Society, the county council's world heritage site officer and Icomos-UK, the body which advises the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) on the creation of world heritage sites.

Kate Fielden of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, which is also objecting to the proposal, said: "What is there at present is an eyesore but the only way the planning system allows the mistakes of the past to be rectified is when another planning application comes along. What is proposed now is too big and will spoil the approach to Avebury - which can only be spoilt once.

"These houses will be there for hundreds of years and could provoke similar development in an internationally protected site. They will stand out like a sore thumb. The planners should be seeking to put something better there rather than something equally obtrusive."

Avebury parish council and residents of the mobile home park behind the garage, however, are wholly in favour of the proposed new homes.

Jennifer Baldry, chairman of the parish council, who has lived in the village all her life, said: "This site has been a problem site for some time. It is run down and scruffy and five smart houses would look far better than what's there at present.

"We are fed up with being told we cannot change. We have lost our village school. We are on the list for the closure of our post office and we are afraid of what will happen if we don't allow the village to move on.

"It might affect the odd view but so do other places. I take the view that we do need some new people because the village is going to pot. Keiller used dynamite to move the trees growing in the stone circle. Now you are not allowed to touch anything."

The parish council voted unanimously in favour of the plan - after two members and the parish clerk, who had an interest in the development because they lived in the mobile home park, had left the room.

The proposal now goes before Kennet district council on Thursday with an officer's recommendation for approval. Conservationists warn there is still a possibility of it being "called in" for public inquiry or the council being taken to judicial review for failing to uphold the statutory protection of the world heritage site.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/01/

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Charles Clover's weekly column takes an inside look at the environment by coldrum on Monday, 28 January 2008
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Utilitarian tide

Sometimes it is the small developments that raise the big questions about whether anyone is really defending the values society professes to hold about the green or the built environment.

A snapshot of what is going on all over the country was the approval by Kennet district council last week of a small development of five houses within the World Heritage Site that includes both Avebury and Stonehenge.

Nobody disputed that the present site, Bonds Garage, with its rows of second hand post office vans, was an eyesore. Nobody disputed, either, that the site was important, at the entrance to the village and 200 yards from the ancient megalithic circle.

Nobody disagreed with the chairman of Avebury parish council who wanted something done to get the site "tidied up" and wanted more people to live in the village (population 480) because they were losing their post office and had already lost their village shop and school.

There were clearly issues that needed balancing delicately - the demands of the present and the mysterious setting of the pre-historic henge, which future generations are likely to value at least as much as we do today.

The question, in this case, was whether the five houses proposed were over the top and would spoil the entrance to one of the most numinous and extraordinary villages in England.

A list of conservation bodies from the National Trust, owner of the Avebury site, to the national guardians of world heritage sites said the development lacked the right level of ambition, set a bad precedent and should be re-thought.

So why, you might ask, did the Government's conservation advisers, English Heritage, which also opposed the development, not ask for it to be "called in" for public inquiry? That would have been the cue for the developer to drop the plan, consult a bit more and come up with something more in keeping.

Maybe a decade ago. Not now. Now the small band of defenders of our built environment - most of them amateur - in Britain's towns and villages are nearly washed away by the relentless tide of applications caused by political decisions to build 3 million new homes and "modernise" the planning system.

In this case, English Heritage, which has had its budget cut relentlessly, appears to have calculated that it did not have the staff or the money to fight. So the development slipped through, without regard to the ancient past, future generations or what the law actually says about the status of a world heritage site.

Disdain for the past

The tide of utilitarianism and disdain for natural beauty or cultural continuity is lapping higher now than at any time since the 1960s. Just look around.

On the heritage side, there are proposals afoot to demolish parts of Smithfield market in London, to demolish 400 perfectly good 19th century houses in Edge Lane, Liverpool (against the wishes of the residents, as a second public inquiry into the scheme heard this week), and to plant an over-large riverside development beside Bath's world heritage site.

On the green side there are proposals to cover the countryside with six times more wind turbines, build a barrage across the Severn Estuary (which would chop up every fourth salmon that swam through it and displace at least half the migratory birds) and - from the so-called defenders of nature, Natural England, no less - to build on London's green belt.

The Labour party in power has presided over the destruction of our heritage on an awesome scale. It seems incapable of understanding values other than monetary ones - though it wasn't always thus. Now it is about to unleash a new set of threats to our green environment, which ministers seldom even mention except as an excuse to bang on about climate change.

The Tories have yet to see this value-deficit as an opportunity.

Plain true


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Re: Anger as homes to be built "160metres outside" Avebury's circle by h_fenton on Monday, 28 January 2008
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The news headline on this story is rather misleading...

what is so bad about these houses which may be built? are they going to be six storys high or something? or maybe painted in bright reds yellows and pinks?

why don't you enlighten me
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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Monday, 28 January 2008
I am glad i saw it when i was in england last year-it will never be the same and i wont go back now.
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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Saturday, 26 January 2008
UNBELEIVABLE!!!!!! WHAT PEOPLE WILL DO FOR MONEY I JUST HOPE THEY CAN SLEEP AT NIGHT!!!!!
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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Saturday, 26 January 2008
AVEBURY & THE NORSEMEN

Avebury And The Norsemen tells of one hundred and seventy standing stones at Avebury, the largest ancient monument in England. Norse myths and sagas written a thousand years ago tell how mankind’s earth was brought into being by three deities Odin, Vili and Ve. How this creation happened, the mythical attributes of their panoply of gods, is told in Icelandic stories.
Each group of Avebury’s ancient stones, item by item and concept by concept, match elements in the Norse tales. It seems the Norsemen inherited their mythical beliefs from very ancient times, from the people who designed and built Avebury about 2500 BC.
Why Avebury was built and its true purpose can now be told.

Avebury offers a visitor the impression of a quiet English village with a cluster of thatched cottages, pepperpot chimneys, a church spire and tall trees nestling in the emerald green folds of the southern English countryside. Crows fly high above, circling the treetops. But Avebury is far more than it seems at first glance.
Dotted throughout the village are totem-like slabs of stone, remnants of a most remarkable man-made ancient monument. You can amble through Avebury’s graveyard of standing stones and identify fragments of a plan originally conceived and built about 2500 BC.
One hundred and seventy mysterious hard grey sandstone megaliths were obtained from Marlborough Downs, five miles away to the north-east, each stone carefully chosen for its size and shape. They varied from a few tons to massive slabs of twenty tons or more, according to the particular purpose for which they were intended. You can appreciate the enormous building effort made by Britain’s inhabitants one hundred and twenty generations ago.
The consensus of belief, the impetus that led to the construction of Avebury’s ancient stones by those ancient people, requires our understanding. There must have been an overwhelming conviction similar to the religious faith held by many societies today. Only that kind of community inspiration can lead to a successful conclusion of the great temple construction project. The celebrated cathedrals of Europe, the mosques of Arab countries, the Buddha statues of the east, exemplify how mankind created temples in recognition of community religious convictions.
What were the religious beliefs of the ancient Britons? Who made the world and how? We have no direct evidence, yet maybe there is a hint of the past at Avebury. There is an answer to the riddle of Avebury’s ancient monument and its purpose.
Writings from twelfth century Iceland tell of a Norse myth describing the creation of mankind's world. Three ancient deities: Odin, Vili and Ve created mankind's world in this way: -
In the beginning of time, long before mankind's world was made, the gods lived in a great empty void of space. They were sorely troubled by wicked frost giants from the north, of whom Ymir was the worst. Eventually they killed Ymir and created the world from his body parts. A broad ocean encircled Earth, the deep wide sea was made from his blood. They raised Ymir's eyebrows to form a protective enclosure around the Earth. Ymir's skull formed the sky and his brains became the clouds. Four submissive slaves called North, East, South and West were summoned to hold up the sky, forever and ever. Within the newly created and protective stronghold called Midgard, a safe haven was made for men and women, for all the birds and animals. Warmed by the Sun and watered by rain, they lived in peace. It was said all families and races of mankind are descended from them.
From earliest prehistoric times, the number thirty-three has been used in an adjectival and symbolic sense to indicate sacred matters, deities, the ultimate place or person. Another Norse tale attributes Odin with thirty-three names describing his strengths and values.
Avebury’s outer ring of ninety-nine standing stones, three times thirty-three, is seen to represent each of the

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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Friday, 25 January 2008
I am outraged and amazed as a person who loves Wiltshire and travel from my home in Connecticut most years to visit the wonderful Avebury Stones.

I have heard of many dum decisions made by councils here and in England but none so frankly absurd.

Got to say, its not what we Americans have come to expect from the English whom we adhore. You have a landscape beyond words and ancient sites to cherrish - why in the world build houses where none should be.
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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Friday, 25 January 2008
Apart from the fact that K.D. council must have lost their sense of history, their sense of culture, their spriritual senses and their sense of landscape, they are also missing a trick. If something so close to a WHS must be demolished - bearing in mind it is already an ugly eyesore - then why not build something beautifully in keeping, that the general public can visit...even PAY to visit? Avebury is free to wander round and visitors always have money burning in their pockets. This site could be a demonstration of roundhouse buildings, a low-lying museum that could take up some of the subject matter not already covered on the site, a tradition covered market or even a further 'refreshment area'.
ninahare
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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Friday, 25 January 2008
Good God! From what hole of filth have the wise councillors of Kennet crawled? This is just an outrage. The only viable step would have been to demolish the existing structure, and not replace it.

This is mindless, myopic vandalism, perpetrated in the name of compromise and er, enterprise, as in, let's make loadsamoney! Whatever gods inspired Avebury will be unimaginably pissed off.

Let's hope this project is cursed, along with the yuppies, bobos and bimbos that purchase a home in this, er, farmstead, er, thing; defiling as it does a structure and circumabient landscape that have endured for 5,000 years.

Idea: how about the thousand upon thousand of right-thinking people who recognize this evil abuse for what it is, gathering on Silbury Hill at dawn on midsummer morning and shouting, "1, 2, 3, BOLLOX!!"? That's if Kennet the Barbarian hasn't already allowed Fuckyourheritage Homes Ltd. to build a bunch of condos on top of it by then.

Is it too late to rip the knackers out of this project? At least let's pray the earth will open up and swallow the f*****g farmstead thingas soon as it's built.

Phil Ryder
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Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by jackdaw1 on Wednesday, 23 January 2008
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Is there no respect left anymore?-money idolatry has it's way yet again,11 votes to 1???!!!Nothing's sacred or safe where greed is involved.
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    Re: Anger as homes to be built inside Avebury's circle by Anonymous on Friday, 25 January 2008
    Not a good idea
    Read the info though - the houses are to be built 200 yds outside the circle-still not a good idea and should not be allowed - but your title implies that they will be inside the circle- that in my mind would be a "hanging offence" !
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Re: Storm over house plan for ancient monument by Anonymous on Wednesday, 23 January 2008
International protection - what a joke. How can they possibly build in the middle of a World Heritage Site? This completely baffles me . . . So much for protecting our sacred sites. I might decide to build a McDonalds in the middle of St Pauls. Desecration - yes indeed . . .
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Storm over house plan for ancient monument by Andy B on Tuesday, 22 January 2008
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Past report: Conservationists and locals all agree that that the dilapidated Bonds Garage, and the fleet of second hand vans that surrounds it, are an eyesore that does no credit to the picturesque village of Avebury.

But the proposal to knock down the 1930s garage and house and to replace them with five new houses has set the Wiltshire village (population 486) on a collision course with the most influential conservation bodies in the land and even the world.

The reason is that Avebury contains one of the largest megalithic monuments in Europe and the garage is sited within 200 yards of the outer rim of the stone circle thought to be 4,500 years old.

Houses have existed within Avebury's stone circle - far larger than the one at Stonehenge - since the Dark Ages, making it one of Europe's most remarkable prehistoric sites.

A number of cottages were knocked down in the 1930s by the Dundee marmalade magnate and archaeologist, Alexander Keiller, who also dug up and re-erected many of the stones.

More cottages were removed by the National Trust, current owner of the monument.

It was Keiller who paid for Bonds Garage to be removed from the circle of stones in the 1930s and relocated to its present site north of the village, where it is now backed by a mobile home park.

It remains, however, within the Avebury World Heritage site and that is what has drawn objections to the proposed new homes from English Heritage, the National Trust, the Avebury Society, the county council's world heritage site officer and Icomos-UK, the body which advises the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) on the creation of world heritage sites.

Kate Fielden of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, which is also objecting to the proposal, said: "What is there at present is an eyesore but the only way the planning system allows the mistakes of the past to be rectified is when another planning application comes along. What is proposed now is too big and will spoil the approach to Avebury - which can only be spoilt once.

"These houses will be there for hundreds of years and could provoke similar development in an internationally protected site. They will stand out like a sore thumb. The planners should be seeking to put something better there rather than something equally obtrusive."

Avebury parish council and residents of the mobile home park behind the garage, however, are wholly in favour of the proposed new homes.

Jennifer Baldry, chairman of the parish council, who has lived in the village all her life, said: "This site has been a problem site for some time. It is run down and scruffy and five smart houses would look far better than what's there at present.

"We are fed up with being told we cannot change. We have lost our village school. We are on the list for the closure of our post office and we are afraid of what will happen if we don't allow the village to move on.

"It might affect the odd view but so do other places. I take the view that we do need some new people because the village is going to pot. Keiller used dynamite to move the trees growing in the stone circle. Now you are not allowed to touch anything."

The parish council voted unanimously in favour of the plan - after two members and the parish clerk, who had an interest in the development because they lived in the mobile home park, had left the room.

The proposal now goes before Kennet district council on Thursday with an officer's recommendation for approval. Conservationists warn there is still a possibility of it being "called in" for public inquiry or the council being taken to judicial review for failing to uphold the statutory protection of the world heritage site.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/ear

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