Stonehenge, Wiltshire
Are you keen to visit and touch the stones at Stonehenge?
This unusual monument is centuries old and how and why it was created still remains very much a mystery, though
there are dozens of ideas and theories.
Very few of the one million visitors every year gets to do more than see Stonehenge from a distance. Around 20%
of visitors are happy to view the stones for free from the nearby A303 road or to park up and peer through the
security fence.
As recently as the 1960's it was possible to get up close to the stones and touch them, even for kids to
climb over them.
However, due to conservation requirements for the stones and surrounding landscape, it is no longer possible to
get up close. Instead, visitors to this English Heritage monument may walk around the stones on a circular grass
path.
Access to the Stones
If time and diary permits, you can visit during the summer solstice in June when there's free access to the
stones. However, you'll have to fight your way through to them through the tens of thousands of other visitors.
Sadly many of these have just come to have a good time and aren't as respectful of the stones as one might
wish.
Special Access Tours
Probably the best way to see the stones is to arrange a special access stone circle visit, you can get
information about this via English Heritage.
Although you have to book in advance, the experience of visiting with a smaller group can have far more
atmosphere and mood than visiting during the day when there's often hundreds of tourists at any one
time. With over an hour to enjoy your visit, you can really make the most of your time, taking
plenty of photographs of this memorable occasion.
The special access visit does not include the services of a guide and is only available during the evenings,
when the gift shop and cafe are closed.
Other organisations may offer guided visits from time to time, for example, Salisbury & South Wiltshire
Museum, who have offered a guided tour with archaeology expert Julian Richards.
Nearby Resources
Holiday Inn, Amesbury - adjacent to the A303 this hotel offers
accommodation, with meeting rooms
& seminar facilities
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