He's the first person to complain about the cover which is indeed on the dreary side, a deliberate attempt to avoid appearing sensationalist. From the Little Chef car park in Winterbourne Abbas, walk eastwards for quarter of a mile on the A35. Even before the walk proper begins in this short built-up section there are features to look out for. You will be following the course of a stream, the winterbourne that gives the village its name. Have another look at it. The first thing you will notice about this unremarkable stream is that it is straight. As it runs alongside the A35, a straight road, presumably the course was straightened by Ministry of Transport engineers building the A35 in the nineteen-twenties or whenever. But the houses are in a straight line too and they certainly weren’t built in the nineteen-twenties so it would seem that this particular stream was ‘canalized’ earlier. Judging by the houses, it might have been some grand turnpike scheme of the nineteenth century. The large clump of trees to the north-east of Barbury Castle could be significant. Trees stand out in the landscape so collectively they can be used as waymarkers. Also clumps of trees, especially in otherwise bare chalk, can be used environmentally. Let your mind encompass the possibilities: do copses help dewponds fight evaporation? Do tree-roots on hilltops prevent those hilltops being washed away? The book doesn't set out to present Megalithia as a gigantic secret society though a sense of exclusivity is inferred. We tell it how it is. (This holds true for present-day movers and shakers and networking goes on innocuously enough at village fetes, dinners and the like.) For the next 275years, these famous "Knights of Malta" made the island their domain and made the Italian language official. They built towns, palaces, churches, gardens, and fortifications, they embellished the island with numerous works of art, and enhanced cultural heritage.

One of the most notable periods of Malta's history is the temple period, starting around 3600BC. The Ġgantija Temple in Gozo is one of the oldest free-standing buildings in the world. The name of the complex stems from the Maltese word ġgant, which reflects the magnitude of the temple's size. Many of the temples are in the form of five semicircular rooms connected at the centre. It has been suggested that these might have represented the head, arms, and legs of a deity, since one of the commonest kinds of statue found in these temples comprises obese human figures, popularly termed "fat ladies" despite their ambiguity of gender, and often considered to represent fertility. [ citation needed]

Rock On

A few yards on from the sarsen stones you arrive at a crossroads where the Ridgeway goes straight ahead towards Avebury. This is the half-way stage where you abandon the Ridgeway and opt to go down the left-hand fork. In less than half a mile you come to a footpath on the left that goes through a gate and eastwards across a field, marked ‘Grey Wethers’ on the map. If you cannot see any wethers immediately it is because they are embedded in the ground in the middle of a field with clumps of nettles growing all around. The stone stumps are lying in a straight line and it is impossible to tell how high they would have been; maybe it was just part of a sheep-pen since the line is too short to have been a wall. In general sarsen stones are not left lying in the middle of fields, they have long since been used for building or simply removed. Phoenicians possibly from Tyre began to colonize the islands in approximately the early 8th century BC as an outpost from which they expanded sea explorations and trade in the Mediterranean. Phoenician tombs have been found in Rabat, Malta and the town of the same name on Gozo, which suggest that the main urban centres at the time were present-day Mdina on Malta and the Cittadella on Gozo. [6] The former settlement was known as Maleth meaning safe haven, and the whole island began to be referred to by that name.

A second wave of colonization arrived from Sicily in around 3850BC. [2] Prof. Caroline Malone has said: "Given the restricted land space of Malta, it is remarkable that the second colonisation survived for 1,500years. This sort of settlement stability is unheard of in Europe and is impressive in terms of how they were able to live on an ever-degrading land for such a period of time." [2] The barrow, which is surrounded by a ditch, is one of a series looking south towards the coast. In front is a pit, which may indicate that the soil used to construct the barrow was taken from here. There are a number of pits beside the path that are marked ‘shake holes’ on the map and assumed to be natural despite the unprecedented number of tumuli lining the ridge path; this is an area that has been unmistakably altered by humans. The barrows continue along the ridge and up the hill on which Hardy’s Monument stands. Be that as it may, the Grotto itself has a more direct connection with Avebury. Here is Avebury’s original layout, according to Stukeley: After about a mile the bridlepath starts going downhill and just after you pass Green Lane Farm on the left, with a gypsy caravan in the garden, you reach a metalled road; a few yards further on turn left off the road through a white kissing gate and go northwards across the field, over a stile and across another field. The A346 is on the right parallel with the path. The path could well be older than the main “Roman” road and was no doubt later used by villagers to avoid tolls once the road was turnpiked. After climbing a second stile continue on the footpath past some houses on the right and a wood on the left until you reach a road. The path continues on the other side of the road via a small bridge spanning a wide shallow ditch full of dead leaves and nettles. If you walk a few yards to the right before going over the footbridge, you will see a sturdy thatched cottage on the corner where the road turns a sharp ninety degrees northwards towards the Ridgeway; the cottage on the crossroads is the old village forge. Continue along the street past a row of almshouses and a church on the green with a notice board explaining local history. This is not a bad spot to consider how much or how little the English landscape has changed in the last five thousand years. Have sheep always needed dipping? Has there always been a need for almshouses? Notice how close the almshouses are to the green. A village green was a drover’s lay-by where the animals could rest overnight; the inhabitants of the almshouses would have been useful while the drovers themselves rested/drank in the pub. An agricultural society obeys its own logic, past and present, but it is up to you to explain the bits that no longer fit. For instance, remember those strip lynchets? Why do they stand out in a landscape of enclosed fields? It is because strip-farming in very large open fields makes as much sense in 3000 BC as it did in 1000 AD but not in 2000 AD. We know when the strips were amalgamated and enclosed (in the Tudor and Victorian eras) but we have no idea when the Open Field System was introduced. Take no notice of anybody, however eminent, who claims to know.Until now little has been known about the stacs, although they were thought to be predominately Iron Age and used for defence. The Iron Age was certainly a period of conflict, as can be seen by the number of brochs and wheelhouses on Lewis, so it made sense to think that the buildings on the stacs came from this period and were for this purpose. These new findings may change this assumption. St. Martha’s Hill is a markedly solitary feature and yet the Pilgrims’ Way, somewhat contrarily, chooses to go over it, via the chapel, instead of bypassing it as one might expect. This however is quite characteristic of Megalithic passages which seem to prefer the highly visible over the strictly convenient. Crop marks on the hill have been interpreted as Neolithic hut circles and a great number of flint tools and flakes have also been found, all evidence of a settlement, or equally of a trading post. One commentator has written of “huge boulders” in nearby Weston Wood which point to the presence of a dolmen or stone circle. The church is only open on Sundays due to its isolation but May Day festivities are still observed on the hill when local Morris dancers perform at sunrise. St. Martha’s Hill is such a conspicuous landmark from the south that it had to be camouflaged to avoid giving navigational aid to Luftwaffe pilots. You can post somebody at a crossroads with instructions to say to oncoming travellers, “Glastonbury to your right, Avebury straight on.” Actually you’d have to post three people doing eight hour shifts since oncoming travellers oncome at any time of night or day. Plus you’d have to build some kind of shelter for inclement weather. And feed them. Oh yes, and you’d have to do this at every significant interchange. The pre-cuts Department of Transport might just about have managed but even that renowned and fearsome organisation The Megalithic Empire would be hard pressed. In September1429, Hafsid Saracens attempted to capture Malta but were repelled by the Maltese. The invaders pillaged the countryside and took about 3,000inhabitants as slaves. [37]

The Ridgeway is designated a national trail, even a national treasure in some people’s view. Don’t be put off by the sheer number of walkers setting out to ‘do’ the Ridgeway in six days or whatever—this is as near to an authentic dip into the Ancient Past as you are likely to find. It is the oldest surviving long distance path in England, stretching more than eighty miles from Overton Hill near Avebury to Ivinghoe Beacon in the Hertfordshire Chilterns. As you walk along the ridge, you will feel you are travelling in time as well as distance and you may be urgently asking yourself what it was for, or perhaps who was it for. While until recently, it was believed that Malta's first inhabitants arrived in the islands in 5700BC, it has now been established that this occurred around 5900BC, as is evidenced by studies of ancient soils. [2] [1] These first Neolithic people have generally been assumed to have arrived from Sicily (about 100 kilometres or 62 miles north), [ citation needed] but DNA analysis shows that they originated from different parts of the Mediterranean, including both Europe and Africa. [2] The starting point of the walk is Ogbourne St. George. Not only is the car parking free (in a side street) and they serve real ale in the pub but it is also a good place to ask the very profound question: what is the Ridgeway’s relationship to the Michael Line? Ogbourne St. George, named for England’s patron dragon-slayer, is on the Michael Line and virtually on the Ridgeway. In fact Ogbourne St. George is the only village that has an intimate relationship to this strategic route that otherwise makes a point of avoiding human settlement. As you begin your walk, picture yourself droving animals and decide why Ogbourne St. George looms so large in your journey.The name Guildford or Geldeford is said to mean ‘golden ford’, from the colour of the sand on the slopes to the south of the town centre. A less poetic and more likely reading is ‘geld ford’ where geld or tax was paid to the custodian of the river crossing, the point on the ridge where the Pilgrims’ Way plunges downhill via Ferry Lane to the ford, the only crossing place over the Wey. As a Megalithic centre, it might easily be the origins of the town itself, manned by hermits, guardians of the well, beacon-lighters, ferrymen, toll-keepers, hosteliers and their hangers-on. It is easy to see that such locations can achieve urban momentum once you accept that Neolithic Britain was a place of intensive long distance transportation. Both the ford and the ferry were going strong right up until 1764 when the river was canalised as part of the Godalming Navigation, and a wholly different nexus-of-routes ushered in the New Britain. Carry on following the line of the wall to the end and continue going north-eastwards, crossing a shallow brook with the help of some stones (you haven’t walked on Dartmoor until you get your feet wet, so the saying goes). When you approach a ‘Danger Area’ you may come across places where the grass is flatter, which you might suppose to be a pathway but have in fact been crushed by military vehicles. It is better to navigate using the skyline: on the other side of the Walkham Valley is Great Mis Tor, a useful ‘signpost’.

While marvelling at how this boulder came to be positioned so precisely, you will also be able to make out a distinctive cone-shaped hill with a spire on top, six or seven miles away to the north-west. It will instantly remind you of Glastonbury Tor, which is probably no coincidence because you are looking at Brentor, and the spire on the pinnacle belongs to St Michael’s Church. Brentor is on the Michael Line, which also passes Glastonbury Tor.

Heaven and Earth

In 1886 Surgeon Major David Bruce discovered the microbe causing the Malta Fever, and in 1905 Themistocles Zammit discovered the fever's sources.