One of the scariest children's tv series ever made, which was based on the village of Avebury, has been remade.

Children of the Stones has just been launched as a BBC Sounds podcast.

The original series follows the adventures of astrophysicist Adam Brake and his teenage son Matthew after they arrive in the small village of Milbury, which is built in the midst of a megalithic stone circle.

Filmed by HTV at Avebury in 1976, it has sinister, discordant wailing voices heightening the tension in the incidental music.

The villagers are under the spell of the creepy Lord of the Manor, who has the villagers - all using the greeting 'Happy Day'.

The shop featured in the series is now called Elements. Donna Byatt is the owner:

“People definitely said ‘Happy Days’ a lot at the time, and when weird things happen in Avebury we still say it to each other,” she said.

Visitors to Avebury this weekend were re-enacting the petrified poses of villages who turned to stone.

"I watched the series when I was about six of seven," said Sam Cracroft from Shrivenham. "I was absolutely terrified!"

Vicky Ross, visiting from Hampshire said: "There must be a few of us who were scarred by that programme!"

Producer of the new podcast, Simon Barnard said: "I’ve been to Avebury several times – always in the daytime, and always with enough fellow tourists wandering around to prevent it being quite as creepy as it was on TV in 1977.

"We actually wanted to record some of the adaptation on location, but unfortunately Covid made it impossible.

"It was for children but full of dense ideas like circular time, black holes and ley lines.

"Many years later I pitched the idea of a remake to the BBC, and fortunately it turned out that the commissioner at BBC Sounds had also been scarred by the original as a child!"