Henge benefits: why Bill Bryson is wrong about Avebury

With his complaints about the cash, the parking and the labyrinthine layout, Bryson is opening the way for the Disneyfication of Avebury’s electric mysteries

Writer Bill Bryson has complained that he was fleeced at Avebury stone circle, shelling out £32 in the famous Wiltshire village before he even saw the stones – and without even getting a cup of tea for his cash. That is quite an achievement, since the Avebury stone circle has no admission charge. It costs nothing to walk around the high earth banks that enfold the village, to stand below sinister sarsen stones that resemble frozen giants, or walk to nearby Silbury Hill and see the closest thing neolithic Britons ever built to an Egyptian pyramid.

Avebury is a mystical wonderland. Bryson seems to have missed the point. He confesses in his new book The Road to Little Dribbling that he felt “grumpy” after paying for parking, then going to the National Trust’s ticket-charging properties in the village before he even found the stones. “The size and complexity of Avebury and the fact that a village stands in its midst,” he says, “make it awfully hard to get your bearings, and the National Trust does precious little to help.”

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