John Betjeman at Avebury

In 1955 Sir John Betjeman was hired by Shell to narrate a series of 26 short films extolling the glories of the British Isles that were now more easily accessible to the public at large in this new era of the motor car.

The series, 'Discovering Britain with John Betjeman', was one of several travelogue style films that Betjeman was to make throughout his life and was a continuation of an association with Shell that stretched back to 1934 when he had written and edited the guidebooks known as the 'Shell Guides' for the company.   Of the 26 films the one of most interest to us here at Wyrd Britain is the one concerning the stone circles at Avebury.

Betjeman has an obvious affection for the stones and the nearby burial mounds and as a lifelong fan of both Arthur Machen and M.R. James it comes as little surprise that in his narration he stresses the religious aspect, the pagan burials and the "sinister atmosphere" of the place which he contrasts with vivid imaginings of the toil, the skill and the scope of the work involved in their construction.

It's an enchanting little film that is almost as much a time capsule of a lost era as the stones themselves and which offers us another glimpse of a part of the land that has long proved irresistible to artists of all flavours.



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Derek Jarman & Coil - A Journey to Avebury

'A Journey to Avebury' is a short super 8mm film made by the film-maker Derek Jarman in 1971 that details the scenery he encountered on the titular journey, a walking holiday in Wiltshire.  The film consists of a series of snippets of varying length of the landscape, flora and fauna of the county along with occasional glimpses of the paths that are leading him and us to the stones of Avebury along routes akin to those trodden when the monument was freshly built..

Almost completely missing from the film are any other humans. With very few exceptions, some kids sat on a wall and a distant car, Jarman is uninterested in them and is instead documenting their absence and their detritus, his footage showing a land existing outside of humanity, a timeless landscape still potentially recognisable to those near mythical builders.

A Journey to Avebury was originally presented as a silent film but following Jarman's death in 1994 Coil, who had contributed music to several of his films ("The Angelic Conversation" and "Blue"), were asked to provide a soundtrack to accompany screenings of the film.  For this they chose a distinctly electronic soundtrack filled with rolling, burbling tones contrasted by a spattering of birdsong.

The film quality and the colour palette give the film the quality of a hazily distorted memory - defining the distorted snapshot aesthetic of the hauntology movement some forty odd years in advance - and both filmaker and musicians play games with our perceptions as both images and sound are filled with motion yet both evoke a sense of stillness; the frozen moment of an extended dawn.

We are indebted to Phil Barrington for his fabulous remaster of the poor quality copies that have long circulated online.




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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain