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ADVENTURE OF THE MONTH — APRIL, 2006

        It has stood as silent and as old as the Sphinx lo these several millennia, mocking us with its riddles, defying us with its unfathomable logic, captivating us with its fearful symmetry. Scattered ruins in a circular cluster draw upwards of 1 million pilgrims annually to a triangle of land wedged between two rural roads on the Salisbury Plain of Wiltshire, England. We don’t know why it was built or who built it. If Stonehenge was built to bring people together to wonder in metaphysical awe at the magical mysteries of Nature, God, and Man, it triumphs still.

Many things we know conclusively about Stonehenge:

• WHEN STONEHENGE WAS BUILT. It was built and altered in severage stages over a period of 1500 years between 3000BC and 1500BC. When the Romans arrived in Britain 200 years ago, the newest parts of Stonehenge were already 1500 years old and the monument was a partial ruin.

• HOW STONEHENGE WAS BUILT. Archeological evidence indicates that Stonehenge was originally an earthwork circle that evolved into a more complex structure, first with wooden posts and later with huge stones set in phases over hundreds of years.

• WHERE THE STONES CAME FROM. The original 80 monolithic bluestones weighing several tons each were brought with great difficulty over land, sea, and inland via rivers and portage from 240 miles away in the Preseli Hills of southwestern Wales. Later in the Bronze Age even larger sarsen stones of 25+ tons were dragged in from northern Wiltshire almost 20 miles from Stonehenge. Modern experiments have shown how prehistoric people could move and erect such large stones with precision using only simple tolls and no wheels.

STONEHENGE'S BLUESTONES AND SARSENS

• STONEHENGE DOES NOT STAND ALONE. It stands in a broad local landscape loaded with dozens of other prehistoric monuments: earthworks, circles, burial chambers, mounds and barrows, each significant, each mysterious, each somehow related to all the rest. Together with a second major prehistoric landscape at nearby Avebury, Stonehenge has been a listed UNESCO’s World Heritage Site since 1986.

Two great mysteries remain: Who built Stonehenge? and Why was Stonehenge built? Over the last 2000 years many scholars (and at least as many crackpots) have offered up theories that attempt to solve the mysteries. Here’s a sampling:

• Ancient Welsh texts credit Merlin the Magician with the magical transporting of the bluestones—thought to have magical healing powers—to Stonehenge to form a symbolic Round Table for a Wiltshire Camelot.

• Great English 17^th century architect Inigo Jones could not believe that such a sophisticated structural array as Stonehenge could be designed and built by primitives. He posited the idea that the Romans built Stonehenge—and drew up complex plans of how a Roman temple would have looked at Stonehenge.

STONEHENGE IMAGINED BY INIGO JONES AS A ROMAN TEMPLE

• John Aubrey, who first discovered and analyzed the ring of "post holes" at Stonehenge that bear his name ("Aubrey Holes") was the first modern to suggest that Druids were responsible for building Stonehenge as a temple for their Celtic religion. Aubrey had read of Roman accounts of the Druid priesthood from the time of Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain in 55BC. What Aubrey didn’t know, however, was that Stonehenge was already 1500 to 3000 years old at the time of Julius Caesar, and already in partial ruins. The people who populated Britain long before the Celts arrived with their Druid priests were likely the actual builders of Stonehenge.

STONEHENGE IMAGINED AS A CELTIC CEREMONIAL TEMPLE

• Recent archeological scholarship suggests that the "Beaker People" of the New Stone Age began the earliest construction of Stonehenge sometime around 3000BC. Pottery and tool artifacts unearthed at Stonehenge support the idea that these primitives were on the site and were the likely builders. The design of the henge (an earthen ditch and bank circle) with a northeastern orientation in line with the exact point of the rising sun on the summer solstice suggests that Stonehenge was more than a simple temple or burial ground for important priests or Celtic kings, queens, and nobles. Indeed, as has been suggested in other ancient sites in Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, Stonehenge may have been designed on an intricate mathematical plan as an astrological calendar that could accurately predict the seasons, the phases of the moon, and even elipses.

MODERN DRUIDS AND STONEHENGE
        Of all the proposals tendered one has best caught the public imagination. Not long after John Aubrey first suggested that Druids were the likely founders of Stonehenge, Druid societies began popping up in Britain, the USA, and Australia. So popular were these semi-secret organizations in their Ku Klux Klan like white robes and hoods that their annual ceremonies on "mid-summer" have drawn great crowds to Stonehenge at dawn on the morning of the summer solstice for well over 100 years. Among the members of the Ancient Order of Druids—one of the more mystical groups dating from the Victorian era—was none other than Winston Churchill, who joined while a young man at Oxford.
        Modern Druids popularized Stonehenge as a tourist destination. Much damage was caused to the monument by the throngs who swarmed over its stones, until—in 1984—Stonehenge became the charge of English Heritage, England’s public/private agency set up by Parliament to oversee and care for the country’s most important historic and prehistoric sites.

STONEHENGE TODAY
        In the last two decades Stonehenge has become tightly controlled, with organized parking, licensed guides, and restricted access to the stones. When you visit today during normal operating hours a rope fence keeps you from getting within 20 feet of the stone circle. Inaccessibility may not be the only disappointment in store for visitors. Two busy rural roads, the A344 and the A303, flank the property on oblique angles that bring car noise and exhaust fumes to less than the length of a football field from the monument. Just beyond the entrance walkway to Stonehenge is a line of husksters hawking ice lollies, souvenirs, and what passes in England for hamburgers.
        If your first impression of Stonehenge is that of a seedy tourist trap, your second impression—once inside the entrance gate—is that the circle is smaller than expected and very exposed to the blustery, wet weather that washes over the plateau of the Salisbury Plain. Bring a sweater, a hat, gloves, a jacket, and rain protection. The third impression is disappointment that you cannot wander among and touch the stones—they beg for it. The fourth impression is that there are too many tourists milling around as close to the stones as possible, straining to hear the droning of the tour guides attempting to de-mystify one of the world’s great mysteries.
        It’s the fifth impression of Stonehenge that’s satisfying. Back away from the stone circle 30 or more yards into the grassy field, enough to minimize the human presence, enough to put the circle into its natural presence caught between the England’s solid green earth and the drama of its John Constable sky. Spellbinding.

STONEHENGE: SATISFYING FROM 30 YARDS AWAY

FACTS FOR VISITORS:

OPEN DAILY:  March 16 through May 31: 9:30AM – 6PM
                      June 1 through August 31: 9AM – 7PM
                      September 1 through October 15: 9:30AM – 6PM
                      October 16 through March 15: 9:30AM – 4PM (exception: closed Dec. 24-25)

ADMISSION: £5.90/adult, £4.40/senior/student, £3/child, £14.80/ family (2 adults + up to 3 children)

GETTING THERE: Stonehenge is within day trip range of Home At First lodgings in three regions of England:

• BY CAR FROM THE SOUTHERN COTSWOLDS: From Home At First’s cottages in/near Tetbury, take the B4014 south to Malmesbury, then the A429 south to Junction 17 of the M4. Don’t enter the M4. Instead continue south on the A350 for Chippenham. Take the A420 into Chippenham, then the A4 southeast to the A342 direction Devizes. (Canal enthusiasts, stop at Devizes to see the 16 consecutive locks stepping up Caen Hill bringing the very much functioning Kennet & Avon Canal into Devizes from the west. Stop for lunch at the Caen Hill Café at the top of the lock ladder.) From Devizes, take the A360 south toward Amesbury and Salisbury. About 1 mile east of Shrewton, at an intersection where the A360 turns right for Salisbury, take the A344 (straight) towards Amesbury. In about ¾ mile you will arrive at the parking area for Stonehenge, on the right of the A344.

THE STEPPED CANAL LOCKS AT CAEN HILL BY DEVIZES

• BY CAR FROM THE NORTHERN COTSWOLDS: From Home At First’s cottages in/near Chipping Campden, take the A44 northwest to Evesham, then the A46 southwest toward Tewkesbury. At Junction 9 of the M5, take the M5 south the M4, then the M4 east to Junction 17. From the M4, drive south on the A350 for Chippenham. Take the A420 into Chippenham, then the A4 southeast to the A342 direction Devizes. (Canal enthusiasts, stop at Devizes to see the 16 consecutive locks stepping up Caen Hill bringing the very much functioning Kennet & Avon Canal into Devizes from the west. Stop for lunch at the Caen Hill Café at the top of the lock ladder.) From Devizes, take the A360 south toward Amesbury and Salisbury. About 1 mile east of Shrewton, at an intersection where the A360 turns right for Salisbury, take the A344 (straight) towards Amesbury. In about ¾ mile you will arrive at the parking area for Stonehenge, on the right of the A344.

• BY CAR FROM DEVONSHIRE: From Home At First’s Devonshire cottages in/near Dartmoor, take the A386 south to the A38 at Plymouth, then the A38 east to Junction 31 of the M5 near Exeter. Take the M5 north two exits to Junction 29, then the A30 east toward Honiton. Five miles beyond Honiton pick up the A303 northeast across Dorset and into Wiltshire almost all the way to Amesbury. Three miles west of Amesbury, and 1 mile after the A303 junction with the A360, turn left on the A344 at Stonehenge. Parking is ½ mile ahead on the A344.

• BY RAIL FROM LONDON: Daily May 16 to September 30, plus weekends and holidays mid-April to mid-May and throughout October. Special Combination Fares: for the round-trip rail journey from Waterloo plus the tour bus to Stonehenge: £16/adult, £13/senior/student, £8/child 5-15, and £40/family (2 adults with up to 4 children). Fares include admission to Stonehenge and the services of the guide. Buy the special combination rail/tour ticket at any National Rail station in England.
        From Home At First’s Apartments at St. Katharine’s Marina by the Tower of London, walk 5-8 minutes to the Tower Hill Underground station. Take the District or Circle Line subway train west 6 stops to Embankment station. Change at Embankment to the Northern Line southbound one stop to Waterloo BritRail station. (Total journey time to Waterloo from St. Katharine’s Marina: 35 minutes.)
        At Waterloo, catch an express train for Salisbury. Service is half-hourly, currently departing Waterloo at 20 minutes and 50 minutes past each hour. Journey time to Salisbury is less than 90 minutes, with current arrivals at 18 minutes and 42 minutes past each hour.
        At Salisbury train & bus station look for the CitySightseeing Stonehenge Tour, numbered as buses 5, 6, 8, & 9. Departures are 9:55AM, 11:55AM, and 1:55PM. The double-decker special buses take less than 30 minutes to reach Stonehenge. Professional tour guides accompany each bus, providing running commentary throughout the two-hour trip. There is no need to pre-reserve.
        The bus returns to Salisbury rail station, or, upon request, will drop you at Salisbury Cathedral so you can view one of the world’s great gothic cathedrals with its magnificent pointed steeple and wander among the ancient streets of medieval Salisbury before returning to the rail station for the journey back to London.
        Trains back to London Waterloo depart half-hourly at about 20 minutes and 45 minutes past each hour. Journey time to London is about 90 minutes. Depart Salisbury as late as 7:25PM and be back home at your St. Katharine’s Marina apartment by 9:30PM.

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL: ANOTHER ENGLISH TREASURE JUST MINUTES FROM STONEHENGE

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HOME AT FIRST offers travel to six regions of England, five regions of Scotland, 4 regions of Ireland and 2 regions of Wales.
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