The small Wiltshire town of Avebury is a great day out for all the family. Located conveniently between Swindon and Edinburgh with an 93% slant in favour of Swindon. Avebury high street has everything you would expect from an English town, including almost two shops and facilities to make telephone calls to near-by county towns as well as post a letter anywhere in the UK. Here you'll also find important local events on the community notice board. Avebury also has some great place to eat. Because of it's mystical forward slash magical reputation, the town attracts a great deal of freaks, most of which are drawn to the area by Avebury's stone formation. At first glance you may think these stones are some kind of anti-gypsy barrier but when these stones were placed here by the Egyptians in 1887 caravans didn't even exist. In fact, these stones formed part of a wall to keep out the buffalos which roamed the English countryside at this time, the gaps were too narrow to let the buffalo pass through. Some of the stones to the North-East of the formation have been stolen over the years making it hard for scientists to determine their layout. In recent years they've been plotting the stone's location on to a map to look for a pattern but one couldn't be found until a breakthrough occurred in 2011 when Martin Bramble, a dog trainer visited Avebury and unearthed the remains of 4 stones. With the gaps now filled, scientists believe the stones were laid out in a circular formation. This is Peter Sampson, the stone circle's unofficial guardian, he's like a mystical vigilantly who spends his days measuring the gaps between the stones to ensure they haven't moved. Due to a large number of stones being stolen in the last decade, they're all now fitted with state of the art burglar alarms. Walking along the longest side of the stone circle, you'll come across this strange wooden tree. Local mothers hang a trinket belonging to their eldest daughter on the tree as she becomes of age to indicate that she is ready to take a mate. One mother as tied a stone on a ribbon to the tree, I don't know why, it's weird if you ask me. Of course it looks a mess, and costs the council thousands every year in clean-up but with no internet connectivity in the town, this tree is the only alternative to OK Cupid. The human to livestock ratio in Avebury is twelve to four to three, meaning that for every resident there are six sheep. These sheep are part of the experiment too. The sheep with a blue number are the "control" flock while the sheep marked in red have been infected with the virus. How their decease spreads throughout the sheep population will be closely monitored by a team of volunteers over the next year. Alan Titchmarsh will reveal the finding of the study in a special programme as part of next year's BBC Children In Need. _____________________ Music: http://audiojungle.net/item/newyorker-in-london/159864

• published: 22 Apr 2014
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