While in Salisbury we took a trip to Stonehenge which is about 10 miles north of the town. We think that Stonehenge is one of those things that must be seen to be truly appreciated. Being the most famous prehistoric site in Europe makes it on everyone’s list of places to visit. The good news is that it is quite isolated in the country and well worth a visit.

The story goes that the large stones, known as Sarsen stones were brought from the Marlborough Downs, some 19 miles away. The smaller stones, known as Bluestones, are from the mystical Preseli Mountains in Wales, about 240 miles away. It is estimated that the stones were brought here between 4,500 and 3,500 years ago (by way of reference this was written in 2000 AD). OK, another one of Jim’s sick attempts at humor.

We returned to the site in July, 2004, hoping for a better view without the rain and fog. We were lucky enough to get a partly cloudy day for our visit so we could get some good photos, such as the panorama, below. The people in the background give you a good idea as to the massive size of the stones. But the stones were not the beginning of Stonehenge, merely an evolution of the site. They estimate that over 5,000 years ago it was a circular ditch and bank (otherwise known as a henge). Then about 4,600 ago a wooden structure was constructed at the center. The stones that exist there now are probably not in their original place, as they have been rearranged over the years. There were more stones at one time, but some were moved to other locations or used for later building construction.

You may or may not like it. It seems to affect people differently. Some were heard to say, Is that it?”, when we were there. We have no idea about any deep significance to the rocks or their placement but do marvel at the engineering and manpower it took to relocate them to this site from Wales! Remember, that in those days there were no roads. The stones had to be transported to the sea shore, loaded on some sort of vessel, transported to the south of England and then off loaded and transported over land and erected at the site. Quite amazing given the state of the world in those days.

W he n w e re tu rn ed th is time, we found the visitor center and the site to be somewhat improved since our last visit. In the brochure they gave us, we found that more improvements are on their way: a new, “state of the art” visitor center and more importantly, from our point of view, a relocation of the motorway (i.e., freeway) that runs very near the site (it will be put into an underground tunnel) and a smaller road that runs along side will be closed. We found the traffic noise and rush of cars to be somewhat incongruous with the nature of the site and definitely distracting. Although it will take upward to 10 years to complete the work, we are sure it will be greatly appreciated by the visitors.

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