Stonehenge, Avebury, and Associated Sites is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) located in Wiltshire, England. The WHS includes two large areas of land that are about 24 kilometers (15 miles) apart. These areas are not a single building or monument. The sites were added to the UNESCO list in 1986 as co-listings. Some well-known monuments are included in the WHS, but the area also has many small archaeological sites from the prehistoric period. More than 700 archaeological features have been found. There are 160 scheduled monuments, which include 415 different items or features.
Stonehenge and associated monuments
The Stonehenge area of the World Heritage Site is located in south Wiltshire. It covers an area of 26 square kilometers and is centered around the ancient monument known as Stonehenge. Ownership of the area is shared among English Heritage, the National Trust, the Ministry of Defence, the RSPB, Wiltshire Council, and private individuals and farmers.
Key sites within the area include:
• Stonehenge
• Stonehenge Avenue
• Stonehenge Cursus
• The Lesser Cursus
• Cursus Barrows
• Durrington Walls
• Woodhenge
• Cuckoo Stone
• Coneybury Henge (has been flattened by farming)
• King Barrow Ridge
• Winterbourne Stoke Barrows
• Normanton Down Barrows, including Bush Barrow
• Vespasian's Camp
• Robin Hood's Ball (a related monument just north of the WHS boundary)
• West Amesbury Henge, also known as Bluestonehenge
Avebury and associated monuments
The Avebury area of the World Heritage Site covers 22.5 square kilometers. It is located around the ancient Avebury Henge, which is about 17 miles (27 kilometers) north of Stonehenge.
- Avebury Henge
- West Kennet Avenue
- Beckhampton Avenue
- West Kennet Long Barrow
- The Sanctuary
- Silbury Hill
- Windmill Hill
Museum and archive collections
The main museums are the Alexander Keiler Museum in Avebury, Salisbury Museum, and Wiltshire Museum in Devizes. Other museums that have items from Stonehenge and Avebury are the British Museum, National Museum of Wales, Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and Ashmolean Museum. Other archives include the Historic England Archive in Swindon, the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford.