Stonehenge, Wiltshire
England

another Stonehenge photo below | England Tourist Attractions Map

The World Heritage Site of Stonehenge is set in gently rolling, rural Salisbury plain, Wiltshire county, an hour or two driving from London. It's a wonderfully bare but fitting location, though slightly degraded by two smallish roads passing nearby. Naturally, as one of England's top monuments, it's heavily visited, though the English Heritage orgvanisation have done a good job in concealing the visitor centre and car parks and keeping internal fencing to the minimum.

Excellent multi-lingual personal audio players are included in the reasonable entry fee and offer clear and comprehensive information on all aspects of Stonehenge. The walking route circles the stones at an acceptable distance, though touching is forbidden. Stonehenge photos are of course, permitted.

Stonehenge is closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day and also difficult to access - though unannounced - on the days before and after the summer [June 21] and winter solstices [December 21] as the police try to control 20,000 or so overnighting Pagans, Druids, Gypsies, New Age Travellers, Ravers and wackos of every description from getting high on the stones, literally and metaphorically.

Stonehenge area map picture

Stonehenge has been carbon-dated from 3100 BC [5,100 years ago].

Typical Summer Solstice regulations and access:
In 2004 the summer solstice occurred at 4.58 am on June 21st. The car park was opened at 8pm on June 20th and was free, as was entry to Stonehenge, opened at 10pm. Car park admission closed at 8am on June 31st and the site closed at 9am June 31st.

No backpacks, sleeping bags or other large bags were allowed onto the site, nor were large amounts of alcohol. Personal use quantities only!
Also no glass [i.e. bottles of booze. Plastic was OK], dogs, cycles, camping equipment, chairs, fireworks, fire making equipment or amplified musical instruments were permitted on the site, though kids in push chairs were OK.

Special car parks, ambient lighting, heated braziers, drinking water, toilet facilities, meeting points, stewards, first aid, emergency services and refreshment areas and local camp sites were organised by English Heritage. Weather guarantees were not, and so it rained, a bit.

Public buses ran from Salisbury Railway and Bus Stations to Stonehenge from 8.45pm on June 20th to 1.20am on June 21st. Returns were from 5.40am until 9.30am June 21st.

Visitors were permitted to touch the stones but not the climb, stand or lean on them.

At the 2004 summer solstice 150 police battled with 300 individuals determined to climb the stones, resulting in a hospital trip for 12.
Meanwhile King Arthur Pendragon, Battle Chieftan of the Council of British Druids, presided over a night-long flaming torch dance near the Heal Stone - the summer sunrise marker - backed by dozens of well-lit drummers, while psychedelic cloaks whirled, Tibetan Hand Bells chimed, fragrant herbal aromas wafted through the damp air and the lunatics took over the asylum.

Stonehenge opening times are roughly:

16 March - 31 May, 9.30am - 6pm.

1 June - 31 August, 9am -7pm.

1 September - 15 October, 9.30am-6pm.

16 October - 15 March, 9.30am - 4pm.

Stonehenge area map picture

Stonehenge's first design was a simple circular earth bank and ditch with a central sanctuary. About 500 years later a wooden structure was built there and then around 2150 BC a powerful Neolithic chieftain was spurred by his priests to upgrade this to a monumental religious edifice by dragging eighty huge bluestones on sledges 240 miles [385km] from Wales, shaping them and arranging them in a double circle.
Larger Sarsen stones [a kind of sandstone] and lintel stones arrived a few years later from Avebury, a mere twenty miles [30km] away.

Although the large vertical stones were clearly tipped into pre-dug holes, then levered upright, how primitive man persuaded the massive lintel stones to settle on top of the verticals - into pre-carved joints - is something of a mystery.

The Stonehenge circle is aligned to midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset in addition to some special moon phases, but this astronomical alignment probably had more to do with the timing of pagan rituals than determining optimum agricultural timing, i.e. when to sow seed or when to harvest.
Ancient peoples living in very close contact with nature had a powerful belief in the Earth Mother and Sky Father, thus the heavily female symbolism of Stonehenge's concentric stone arrangements - resembling a womb and vulva. To guarantee fertility of crops, animals and families the Sky Father needed tp penetrate the Earth Mother, and this is clearly visible about 5am from 18-24th June when the sun is bright [visible from the roadside through the fence]. The shadow from the phallic Heel Stone enters the vulva arch to touch the Womb [or Cult] Stone [pictured above, though not at sunrise!].

There are no museums at the Stonehenge site but 7 miles [10kms] away Salisbury Museum [Cathedral Close] has an excellent collection of artefacts, as has Devizes Museum [Long Street].

The Future of Stonehenge: Stonehenge is managed by English Heritage and the surrounding landscape by the National Trust. These two organisations are planning, with the help of the Highways Agency, to put the larger of the two roads in a tunnel, and to close much of the other road, thus restoring Stonehenge to its original solitary glory.

A new visitor centre will be located 2 miles [3km] from the stones with considerably more facilities than the present centre, and a land train will take visitors who prefer to ride to the site.
There is no schedule for these improvements yet as the cost of the tunnelling will be monstrous and no one is volunteering to pick up the bill, but it's likely to happen within ten years. Until then, well, this is still one of England's top sights but try to see it on a sunny day out of season.

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Stonehenge, Wiltshire England

Stonehenge, Wiltshire
England