Avebury, Wiltshire : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Avebury. You may be able to find further references to Avebury in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Avebury, or Abury parish Bartholomew
AVEBURY, or Abury a village and a parish Imperial

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Avebury within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
William Camden Wiltshire and Hampshire 1
Daniel Defoe Letter 3, Part 2: Salisbury and Dorset 1
William Gilpin Bristol to London 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Silbury Hill 2 2
Winterbourne Monkton 0 2
East Kennett 0 2
Yatesbury 1 2
Berwick Bassett 0 2
West Overton 1 5
Cherhill 0 2
Fyfield 0 2
Allington 0 2
Lockeridge 0 1
Winterbourne Bassett 0 2
Alton Barnes 0 2
Preshute 1 2
Selkley 0 2
Clatford 0 2
All Cannings 0 2
Stanton St Bernard 0 2
Alton Priors 1 2
Bourton 0 2
Huish 0 3

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Avebury. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
ABURY John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
William Gilpin Observations of the River Wye, and several parts of South Wales (London: Cadell Junior and W. Davies, 1800).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
AIBURIE William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
AUBERY Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
AVEBURY John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
AVEBURY OR ABURY John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.