Stonehenge
What visitors see today are the substantial remnants of the last in a sequence of such monuments erected between circa 3000BC and 1600BC. Each monument was a circular structure, aligned with the rising of the sun at the midsummer solstice. - Building represented an enormous investment of labour and time: huge effort and great organisation was needed to carry the stones tens, and sometimes hundreds, of miles by land and water and then to shape and raise them.
- Stonehenge’s builders showed great ingenuity: with only very basic tools, they shaped the stones and formed the joints that linked uprights to lintels. Using antlers and bones, they dug the pits to hold the stones and made the banks and ditches that enclosed them.
- Burial mounds, possibly containing the graves of ruling families, are also integral to the landscape. Neolithic long barrows and the various types of circular barrows that came later are still visible.
- Now a World Heritage Site, Stonehenge and all its surroundings remain powerful witnesses to the once-great civilisations of the Stone and Bronze Ages, between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago.
Stone Circle Access: It is possible to arrange for Stone Circle Access to the inner circle at Stonehenge, from dawn until half an hour before the site opens - only possible during the times when Stonehenge is closed to the general public.