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Sunrise at Avebury

The Ridgeway is a ridgeway or ancient trackway described as Britain's oldest road at more thsn 5000 years old.

 

The section clearly identified as an ancient trackway extends from Wiltshire along the chalk ridge of the Berkshire Downs to the River Thames at the Goring Gap, part of the Icknield Way which ran, not always on the ridge, from Salisbury Plain to East Anglia.

 

The route was adapted and extended as a National Trail in 1972. The Ridgeway National Trail follows the ancient Ridgeway from Overton Hill, near Avebury, to Streatley, then follows footpaths and parts of the ancient Icknield Way through the Chiltern Hills to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire. The National Trail is 87 miles (140 km) long.

 

Dotted along its route are numerous beech copses which mask Neolithic burial mounds, most along the ridge itself. Not only are these of historical interest, they also make great photographic subjects silhouetted against the skyline

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Uploaded on February 2, 2021
Taken on January 31, 2021