Yes, fair reader, Avebury, from which Avebury Press takes its name, is a real place nestled in a hollow on the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire, England. Though you, in whichever far flung corner of this world you live, may never have heard of it, it is, in its small way, famous. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, no less, on account of the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world adjoining, and partly encircling the village. With 250,000 visitors annually, many from around the corners of the world, it is also… we were going to say Mecca but that is completely wrong for at 5,000 years Avebury is far older. Let us say it is for many a place of pilgrimage, an omphalos for New-Age and Neo-Pagan beliefs, and a riot at the summer solstice.

It is also the home of Nevil Warbrook and where This Iron Race begins.

We have apologised to the good people of Avebury and environs whose lives we have misrepresented and trespassed upon in the interests of creating fiction, for while the characters in This Iron Race and The Reluctant Ascent of Nevil Warbrook are fictitious, many of Avebury’s landmarks appear. Some are under their real names, and I hope St James, The Red Lion, The Post Office, Avebury Community Shop, and The Henge Shop, are familiar to all who know them. Under different names, though still, we hope, recognisable, are the Avebury Social Centre, Avebury Antiques, Elements of Avebury, and The National Trust.

The Avebury Society of Painters (ASP) is wholly our invention, as is the New Barn School, and if The Red Lion has a dominoes team I hope they enjoy more success than Bert Tanner, Sid Morris, and our hero, Nevil Warbrook.

To the Rev’d Jonathan Poston, rector of St James, and his predecessor Rev’ Maria Shepherdson, I can only plead mischievousness and hope your custody of the church kinder than that of the fictional Reverend Peter Chadwick. To members of the Parochial Church Council we ask for forgiveness and hope your meetings are more amicable than those depicted in 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝐴𝑠𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑁𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑙 𝑊𝑎𝑟𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑘.

The following articles are not a wholly reliable guide to Avebury and its charms, but perhaps Avebury, for inhabitant and visitor alike, is whatever you need it to be.