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Stonehenge, Wiltshire

Stonehenge, one of the most outstanding prehistoric monuments in Britain, was built in stages between 3000 and 1500BC. The larger stones, the Sarsen stones, were brought from the Marlborough Downs 19 miles away. The smaller stones, known as the Blue stones came from the Preseli Mountains in Wales 240 miles away. This was a ceremonial centre for a local civilisation, and standing at Stonehenge there are traces of the past culture all around in burial mounds that dot the downland of Salisbury Plain.

Geoffrey Wainwright in his book The Henge Monuments has suggested that a period of crisis preceded the building of Stonehenge and similar monuments. From about 2500BC a period of relative prosperity for the Neolithic farmers of Britain came to an end. Formerly cultivated land in Norfolk, Suffolk and Wessex became infested with weeds and scrub. It is possible that the preceding period of success in agriculture had exhausted the soil. Fortified hilltops seem to indicate an increase in conflict between communities struggling for scarce resources. Out of this crisis came the tradition for monument building which, in Wainwright's view: "is most plausibly to be viewed as a method of integrating different parts of an embryonic society in a single undertaking." Interestingly the religious monuments with their banks and ditches are very reminiscent of the hilltop forts. The sites of symbolic security were built along the same lines as the sites where actual physical security was sought. See the banks and ditches of Maiden Castle in Dorset for example.

People had to learn to work together. They worked together on hugely ambitious building schemes, which probably had some kind of religious significance. Religion seems to have been involved generally in the evolving art of social control. John E Pfeiffer, the writer on ancient culture, suggests that leaders who claimed authority bestowed by some kind of unseen god were difficult to challenge: leaders who based their authority on plain old competence could always be challenged. They could make a mistake, their claims to greatness could be checked. Far better to claim authority from a source that could never be checked. This kind of social organisation seems to have evolved in the hostile environment of the Ice Age when glaciers a mile high moved as far south as the present day sites of London, Berlin and Warsaw. The pressure of those times resulted in societies that used religion to bind themselves tightly together. Perhaps a similar development took place in the crisis that preceded the building and use of henge monuments. Even today, when the divine right of kings is a distant memory, people look to charismatic leaders, rather than to a competent person who in all probability could do a better practical job, but who wouldn't make such a good leader. The power of charisma remains, with all its possibilities and perils.

 

A walk takes visitors around Stonehenge. It isn't usually possible to walk amongst the stones now, which gives a strangely moving processional quality to a trip around the stones. It is thought that processions once approached Stonehenge along the Avenue, a ceremonial highway that crossed the downland towards the stone circle. Watching lines of people walking around the stones today seems to bring back something of those times.

There is no access to the centre circle during normal opening hours, but private access can be arranged out of hours by phoning the contact number below. The visitor facilities are a little dated now. There are plans for a completely new visitors centre, and for the A303 running past the site to be put into a tunnel.

Opening Times: Stonehenge is open every day except 24th and 25th December. From 16th March to 31st May 9.30am - 6pm, from 1st June to 31st August 9am - 7pm, from 1st September to 15th October 9.30am - 6pm, from 16th October to 15th March 9.30 - 4pm and on 26th December and 1st January 10am - 4pm. Opening hours can vary around the Summer Solstice. Check with customer services on 0870 333 1181

Directions: Stonehenge lies beside the A303 in Wiltshire. Turn onto the A344 and then into the car park. Click here for an interactive road and satellite map centred on Stonehenge. Switch to satellite view and zoom in to see the overall pattern of this ancient landscape.

Access: there is good wheelchair access, a Braille guide, and a hearing loop.

Contact:

telephone: 01980 626267

web: www.english-heritage.org.uk/stonehenge