5th Feb.: Stonehenge Up Close

I’m a member of English Heritage (or Historic England, whatever it is now called*) and I noticed amongst Member Events “Stonehenge Up Close” at 07:30 on 5th February.  I’ve always wanted to get a close up view of the monument but, not wanting to be there during summer Solstice crowds, that is not possible for Stonehenge visitors.  So I signed up for the event.

We were lucky with the weather.  I started the drive in the dark at 06:10 having got the ice and frost off the windscreen, and was greeted by the security guards on the road approach to the Stonehenge car park at just after 7am.  It was cold, frost on the grass and mist in the valleys.  The Visitor Centre was closed until 09:30 but to my relief the toilets were open!

We were taken to the shuttle bus at 07:30, by chance I was one of the last on, which meant one of the first off and thus was lucky to be in the first of two parties (of around 25 people each) with the English Heritage property curator for the Stonehenge monument as guide.  At the monument only one party at a time was taken inside so there did not seem to be a crowd.  Opposite are the photo locations for the photos in the gallery below.

The visit ended at around 09:00 with breakfast in the visitor centre cafe.  I left at 09:20 with the first coach parties starting to turn up – a Japanese group who would probably wonder why the stones had not all been re-erected in the way that old buildings and monuments are rebuilt, repainted, and restored in Japan!

* apparently Historic England is the public body (official name is Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) whereas the English Heritage Trust is set up as a charity which looks after the monuments and opens them to the public.