please empty your brain below
I paid a visit in the early 1960's and I am sure I was able to walk among the stones and touch them back then.
Memories of many drive bys on the A303 include -
a massive murmuration of increasing numbers of migratory birds gathering to fly south
an impressive recreation of the stones in haybales of all the right shapes and sizes beside the road
a maniac deliberately leaving the A344 immediately in front us, oh so nearly causing a fatal pile up.
Happy days!
My one and only trip to Stonehenge was in 1958, in those days the standing stones were just in the middle of a big field. You could walk and climb all over the site, my parents has brought tea and sandwiches, it had just rained the night before so there were large puddles. A photo was taken of my mother & I, drinking tea sitting on one of the stones. Only when we were leaving did we see any other people.
I would not be in the least surprised if DG's next episode is from there.
Amesbury is a small town with quite a history, but not especially sarsenworthy.
Maybe another trip then, DG, Avebury, Silbury Hill and West Kennet long barrow. I'd thoroughly recommend this and with a bus from Swindon easily done as a day trip.
Thanks as ever DG. I'm a very regular reader and irregular commenter.
As you say, it isn't as intrusive as some make out when you're at the Stones, but the approach is an absolute nightmare to drive in either direction!
Saying that, I'd hate to see it go into tunnels.
My last visit was in May when taking an American visitor round. She spent 2 hours taking photos from every conceivable angle - I sat on the grass and soaked up the atmosphere - and sun!
Remember Children of the Stones TV programme in the 1970s? It was set in Avebury and was blooming fantastic! Well worth re-watching on You Tube!
Still, I made the selfie with the Stonehenge my WhatsApp avatar for 3 years (since replaced by Brighton Pavilion), and my current scarf was bought there.
Easier to get there too, as on a normal bus route from Swindon (and near the start of the Ridgeway walk), it even has a pub in the middle!
A four min power ballad about the mysteries of Stonehenge, discussing various theories about Why They Built It. Very much the definitive (humourous) music video about Stonehenge. Not that its a particularly large music genre.
Last time I saw Stonehenge in person so to speak was from the window of a bus to Exeter in 1982. Still pretty impressive. Even at 60mph on a grey day in April.
I'd recommend a visit to the Rollright Stones by the way. Far more atmospheric, no crowds and you can get as close as you like. They're more the size of the Woodhenge markers mind, but the real thing nonetheless.
I was beginning to think that I had conjured up a false memory that my dad had taken me there when still quite young, that we'd been up close and personal with the monument, and that I'd apparently reported back to my mum that "They were just some old rocks, in a field."
March 9, 1978: “Work will begin at Stonehenge on March 15 on removing the nine-year-old gravel surface in and around the stone circle and re-turfing the area. For about a month visitors will not be able to go within the bank and ditch around the circle.” – The Times
April 9, 1978: “Plans are being implemented by England’s Department of the Environment to limit access to the circle area where the big stones stand and rest silently…. …work is expected to be completed by early May…” – The Washington Post
And the paying public have been banned from walking freely among the stones ever since. Mostly.
Easy to forget that there were increasingly fierce battles each midsummer from the mid-1970s as hippies and druids fought to celebrate near or within the circle, to the horror of archaeologists and barbed-wire-wielding civil servants, leading most notably to the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985. Peace was hammered out over years of roundtable meetings (“yes, at an actual round table”).
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