Visit the ancient ruins of Stonehenge and learn the history surrounding this world renown site!

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England.   It is a little more than an hour’s westerly drive from where I live in Poole, Dorset in the southwest of England.  From London it would be about a 2-and-a-half-hour drive in a southwest direction.   

Stonehenge is the world’s best-known ancient stone circle.  Built around the same time as the Great Pyramid in Egypt, 4,500 years ago, the finished monument of massive and finely dressed sarsen stone was unlike anything ever seen across Europe. It is a powerful memorial to a key period of British and European history.  

You can visit Stonehenge year-round, and it is an English Heritage site. On site you can walk around the perimeter of the stone circle.  There is also a Visitor  Center onsite with photographs of Stonehenge over the years, showing past visitors climbing, sitting, and even having picnics on the stones!  The Visitor Center museum also has artifacts and exhibits with historical data and facts to help you understand the mystique around this amazing site.  Unfortunately, no one is allowed to touch or get physically close to the stones as decades of people touching, climbing, and sitting upon the structures caused some destruction.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/

However, simply being in the presence of these great structures is awe inspiring.  Can you imagine the centuries it took to build?  Can you picture the work that went into moving these huge pieces of stone?  Can you imagine the scientists, scholars, and architects it took to ensure this circle was erected properly, and how exacting they were for it still be standing thousands of years later?  Can you imagine the surrounding villages?  Imagine the people who worshipped around these structures, imagine the villagers and farmers using this immense structure to keep track of the time, the days, the seasons, and the years?

According to folklore, Stonehenge was created by Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, who magically transported the massive stones from Ireland, where giants had assembled them. Another legend says invading Danes put the stones up.  Still  another theory says they were the ruins of a Roman temple. Some modern-day theorists argue that Stonehenge is a spacecraft landing area for aliens….you decide!!!

But a few facts:

• Stonehenge is a stone circle in Wiltshire, England.
• It was built 5000 years ago ~ that’s 3000 to 2000 B.C.!
• It took 1,000 years to build!
• Scientists think that the stones were a way to tell the time of year .
• The earliest stage of the monument is one of the largest cremations cemeteries known in Neolithic Britain.
• The stones were brought from long distances – the bluestones from the Preseli Hills, over 150 miles (250km) away, and the sarsens from West Woods, 15 miles (25km) north of Stonehenge on the edge of the Marlborough Downs.
• Researchers say the site was created based on a solar year of 365.25 days to help people keep track of days, weeks, and months.
• The mystery of Stonehenge may finally have been unraveled by researchers who say it’s a giant solar calendar that may link the UK to ancient Egypt.
• Stonehenge is the oldest and only remaining monument named in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

You can spend a full day here, touring the Visitor Center, learning the history of Stonehenge, and walking around the circle of stones and it is a photographers dream!   Enjoy discovering reproductions of Neolithic houses sometimes staffed with volunteers dressed for the period and performing daily tasks that they are happy to explain to you, the visitor to their land!  There are open areas if you wish to bring your own picnic lunch or snacks or stop by the on-site café serving soups, sandwiches, Cornish pasties and some sweet treats including rock cakes!   Of course, there is also an on-site shop, selling clothing, books, toys for the kiddies as well as Stonehenge memorabilia.  

A great way to enjoy a day in the English countryside at an amazing must-see attraction! Have some fun!

I hope you are enjoying my posts, thoughts and sharings!  Please subscribe to follow my insights by clicking on the link below and by entering your email address at the bottom of the link.  You’ll receive emails from me when I post! 

yankeebrit.blog

Or use your existing WordPress account or sign up now and follow me there!  Once you subscribe via email or create a WordPress account and follow me at the link below, you can select “Reader” and see all my posts!!

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/137707474

You can also follow me on Facebook at yankeebrit.blog:

https://www.facebook.com/yankeebrit.blog

Or pop me an email with comments. thoughts, questions: