Bed and Breakfast, Real Ale and Fantastic Food
Walk to the famous Stone Megaliths of Avebury
From The New Inn, Winterbourne Monkton
Avebury
Wiltshire, SN4 9NW. England
Phone: +44 (0)1672 539240
Email Us enquiries@thenewinn.net
Click here for map

The New Inn has been a public house for 100's of years.
The building where the bar now stands is about
200 years old.
The restaurant & the back of the building are made up of 300 year old, thatched cottages.

The following tale may be why The New Inn
is called ' The New Inn '
No one seems to know the name of the pub
before it burnt down.
If YOU find out, please tell us!
There's a free beer for the most original answer

George Neate, who farmed on land at Monkton which bordered Avebury Manor, had dismantled his threshing machine during the November 1830 riots only to re-assemble it the following summer. On Saturday 4th June 1831, many of the buildings  on Neate's farm were razed to the ground by fire.
An engine from Avebury  attended the fire, but unable to halt the devastation of the buildings that were already alight, played water on the walls of the church as fire threatened to take hold from the edge of the graveyard.


The Avebury Fire Engine.

The night sky was ablaze with  embers that brought alarm to those in thatched houses as far away as the village of West Kennet, which is some miles away across the Downs. It must have been an awesome sight as the blaze in progress attracted people to the scene from as far away as Devizes, and the following day nearly a thousand people  came from all over the county to witness the destruction.

The local press  reported that the fire at Monkton had destroyed the most extensive range of farm buildings in Wiltshire, erected at an estimated cost of one thousand pounds, and that the total loss was estimated at between two and three thousand pounds. The report also mentions that the farm was fully insured; all livestock, machines  ricks, barns and other buildings were covered; only tithe stacks were not.

Glastonbury Abbey acquired this area in 928AD and the
Monks settled the village, hence it's name.
Winterbourne Monkton was settled to prevent the worship at the Stones... and to convert the Pagans.
The Winterbourne is the winter river that runs through the fields to Avebury where its meets the river Kennet and feeds the Swallow Head Springs at Silbury Hill.

The village and parish of Avebury lies a short distance north, north east of the centre of the county and it was very much the centre of a hugely important area in Neolithic times. Here is an ancient landscape; more ancient than Stonehenge and much greater. Among just some of the prehistoric sites within the parish are Silbury Hill, Windmill Hill and West Kennet long barrow as well as the stone circle and avenues of Avebury itself. For good measure there is also a part of the early routeway of the Ridgeway and part of a straight Roman road in which there is a kink to enable it to avoid Silbury Hill.