Britain's saddest theft
I
This tale rarely gets a mention
And may not be known to all;
How religious intervention
Caused Avebury's stones to fall.
The monument in Wiltshire we see
Really is a special thing,
Completed in 3000 BC,
Two avenues and one great ring.
It should have stayed unchanged forever,
Without Christian fear it might
But Puritans full of endeavour
Came to desecrate the site.
The locals in the medieval
Era had a job to do
With yokel tools for fighting evil,
Shovels, spades and crowbars too.
There was no fair consideration
Given to this pagan place,
They had no thought or toleration,
All they saw was Satan's face.
And so the megaliths were tumbled,
Men worked hard and yet still bound
By superstition, no stones crumbled;
Most were buried underground.
II
Avebury, from our prehistory
Stood the next four hundred years
But 'progress' seemed to weaken mystery;
What remained lured merchant peers.
Thus did temple turn to quarry,
Bridges, drains and cottage walls
Planned by builders never sorry,
Profit was the only cause.
The western avenue through pillage
Lost two hundred stones, in sun
Here they shimmered near the village,
Yet today there's only one.
Stone-breakers' names were recorded,
Griffin, Robinson and Green,
Fowler, doing something sordid,
Picture now the awful scene:
Sledgehammers primed for destruction,
Sarsen burned or smashed to lumps
Till a mystical construction
Lay in fragments, bits and stumps.
Though six hundred stones here towered
Less than eighty now are left,
Avebury where magic flowered,
Scene of Britain's saddest theft.
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