A good rock spoiled (Stonehenge)

Member Name: MykReeve

Product:	Stonehenge
Date:	29/05/01 (220 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Impressive mysterious stone circle, Tourists aren't allowed near it, Easy to get to

Disadvantages: High admission fee, not enough audio guides, Not enough staff, Continual background noise of nearby A303, High mesh fence around the site

Stonehenge poses so many questions, many of them beginning with the words "how" and "why", such as "Why does it cost so much to visit?", for example. English Heritage have made a real effort to milk this mysterious ring of giant stones for as much as they can, doing as little as possible to make visitors' experiences an enjoyable one, and seemingly trying their hardest to rob the place of its mystery.

Nonetheless, despite the best efforts of English Heritage, Stonehenge remains a stunning and fascinating structure – not even the continual drone of the nearby A303 can ruin that.

GETTING THERE

Getting to Stonehenge is remarkably easy. From London, take the M3 west, and then turn onto the A303 at Junction 8. From nearby Salisbury, it's a simple matter of taking the A360 north, and following the signposts. If you don't fancy driving, then coach services from the city of Salisbury run throughout the day.

The car park at Stonehenge is incredibly tiny, given the popularity of the tourist attraction, so it's likely that you'll have to queue to get into it. There is a small neighbouring field which is pressed into service as an overflow car park, however, you still have to go through the normal car park to get to it, so it doesn't speed things along that much.

HISTORY

The first circle at Stonehenge was constructed over 5,000 years ago, around 3050 BC. This consisted of an outer ditch and bank, once around 6 feet high, flanked by a pair of companion stones to the northwest. One of these stones, the so-called Slaughter Stone, can still be found on the site, though is no longer standing. At the time, wooden posts were driven into the ground around the edge of the ditch marking the positions of moonrises around the edge of the circle.

Shortly after this, the entrance between the two companion stones was widened, and its angle changed to match the angle of th
e midsummer sunrise. Another stone, the Heelstone, was raised a little distance away from the circle, between the two companion stones, and the circle seemed to be used more for examining solar than lunar movements.

Around three centuries later, four station stones were errected around the outside of the circle, making a 5:12 rectangle within the ditch. Two of the four station stones can still be found on the site. The two missing station stones stood within circular ditches referred to as the 'South Barrow' and 'North Barrow', both of which are still visible on the site.

About the same time, a central bluestone 'henge' of stones was erected from Bluestones brought from the Preseli mountains of Wales some 385 kilometres away. These are not the large stones that most people associate with Stonehenge, but are nonetheless very large, and the challenge of moving them all the way from Wales at that time would have been a considerable one. It isn't clear why these particular Welsh Bluestones had to be used, rather than local stones, and this is just one of the many mysteries of Stonehenge.

Around 2500 BC, some 4,500 years ago, work began on the famous Sarsen circle of stones that you immediately think of when someone mentions Stonehenge, along with a circle of five massive trilithons within the circle. The sarsens rise some 13 feet above the ground, and the trilithons vary in height between 15 and 24 feet above the ground. Approximately one-third of the height of each type of stone is below the ground.

The positioning of the Sarsen circle is astronomically significant. If an equilateral seven pointed star is constructed within the original ditch at Stonehenge, the position of the Sarsen circle can be traced by the points where the lines of the seven pointed star meet. Even more impressively, if one of the points is positioned at true north, the neighbouring point (exactly one-seventh of the way round the circ
le) corresponds to the location of the midsummer sunrise. This could only be true with a circle constructed at the exact latitude of Stonehenge – and was presumably known when the site was originally selected back in 3050 BC!

The earlier circle of Bluestones was deconstructed around this time, and the stones were used to horseshoe of bluestones within the trilithons, and a circle between the trilithons and the sarsens.

Examining the standing Sarsen stones reveals the secrets of the circle's construction. Around the top of the 37 upright sarsens were placed 30 curved lintels, which were dixed securely using tenons and mortises. Tenons (small nubs on the top of the upright sarsens) are clearly visible on several of the remaining standing sarsen stones, which do not still bear lintels.

Around 1500 BC, Stonehenge apparently fell into disuse. Again, it's unclear exactly why this happened, but the site essentially lay widely unknown until around 1500 AD, standing subject to the eccentricities of British weather. The first known illustration of the stones, produced by Lucas de Herre in 1575, drawn 'on the spot'. It suggests that several of Sarsen stones had disappeared in the intervening three millennia, and that some had fallen. Additionally, two of the trilithons had apparently disappeared. It is thought that many of the missing stones were used in the construction of nearby roads and houses.

Subsequent visitors have left their marks on the circle, and further stones have fallen within written memory. In 1797, one of the remaining trilithons fell, reportedly causing the ground to shake several miles away. In the last night of the nineteenth century, a sarsen upright and lintel fell. Some of the fallen stones have been "restored", and not always to their correct positions.

THE EXPERIENCE

Approaching Stonehenge, your first glimpse of the stone circles is an obscured one through the high m
esh fence that English Heritage have installed around the site. They are impressive, but it is difficult to get a true feel for their mystery.

From the car park, you walk down to the ticket office to part with your hard-earned in order to go and stand near the stones. Are you sitting comfortably? The admission price is £4.20 for adults. Yeah, thought that might get you... £4.20 to stand near some stones. (£3.20 for concessions). Still, despite the cost, hundreds of thousands of people per year, pay to go and stand near the stones... what else are you going to do after taking the time and trouble to drive out to the middle of nowhere?

Anyway, from the ticket office, you pick up one of the English Heritage audio guides. Or rather, you do if there are any actually available. Free audio guides are available "subject to availability" apparently, though the "subject to availability" part is usually written in very small print indeed. If you're bilingual, there are loads of audio guides available in French, Spanish, German, Japanese or Swedish... however, there are woefully few English audio guides given the number of visitors from the US, Canada and Britain that the stones receive.

If you can't get an audio guide, then never fear, custodians are available around the site to answer your questions... or at least, so claims the leaflet you are handed as you arrive. Are there really? Well, I didn't see any. In fact, there was nothing to stop visitors crossing the cordon marking the path around the site, and walking up to the stones. I know, because I saw several people cross it, and no one approached them to stop them. Irritatingly, this also means that, if you should have any questions about the stones, which is pretty likely, there are no staff there to answer them.

When I arrived, no English audio guides were available, so I waited for one... for twenty minutes. Then, I headed through an underpass under th
e A314 to the site itself, coming up within the mesh fence. The audio guide had information on seven different areas around the site. For the most part it was informative, though it was profoundly patronising, and wont to wander off on unbearable tangents about how darn mysterious the whole place is. My favourite quote? "Like giant stone teeth in the gums of the Earth." Quite.

Walking around the stone circles was an experience largely robbed of the "magical" feeling that visitors to the site who went there when you were still able to walk among the stones report. Instead, you walk along a narrow path, crowded with tourists anxiously documenting the whole experience with camcorders and digital cameras. In its favour, the fact that people are prevented from approaching the stones (though apparently only by respect for the cordon, rather than enforcement by English Heritage staff) does mean that you can get good pictures of the circles, unmarred by groups of tourists in front of them.

Oh, and if all that wasn't enough, as you walk around the site, you'll see large signs encouraging you to join English Heritage positioned obviously at regular intervals... Talk about overkill...

GIFT SHOP

The Stonehenge gift shop is an unremarkable affair, filled with postcards, books, and the usual collection of stationery. English Heritage have done everything short of force you to go through the gift shop in order to leave the site... Surprise surprise. The Stonehenge guidebook will cost you £3.95.

FOOT AND MOUTH

A quick topical note (as of May 2001). Stonehenge is currently open, despite having closed in March and April 2001 as a precautionary measure against the spread of foot and mouth disease. MAFF approved disinfectant mats can be found at the entrance to the car park, and in the pedestrian underpass beneath the A314.

In case the situation should change, it would be as well to check that th
e site is open before heading off there. The information line is on 01980 624715.

CONCLUSIONS

Stonehenge itself is unquestionably an impressive monument, conjuring up all manner of questions about the "how" and "why" of its construction, and suggesting that primitive Britons had an impressive understanding of the movement of the sun and the moon. However, English Heritage's poor management of the site, and exceptionally high admission charges rob the site of much of its majesty, and make a visit to the site significantly less enjoyable.

My advice is to park in the English Heritage car park, for which there's no charge, and cross the A314, and take your photographs of the stone circles through the mesh fence. It won't cost you anything, and you'll be as impressed by the site as if you had paid the entry fee. In fact, if you go after the site has closed, and all the tourists have gone, you'll be able to take photographs of it without any tourists surrounding the stone circle – now that's a winning option!

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