By using this website you agree to our Cookie policy

December 2014

Vol. 156 / No. 1341

Stonehenge revisited

Disappointment has long been one of the many reactions expressed by visitors to Stonehenge over the last century or so. The monument itself was ‘too small’ to fulfil great expectations; the nearby road traffic was intrusive; the visitor facilities were banal and encroached on the site itself (the Canadian heroine of Margaret Atwood’s novel Lady Oracle (1976), for example, is ‘shocked’ by its fenced-off presentation). Running alongside this deteriorating experience, advances in knowledge, brought about mostly by new technology, have firmly established Stonehenge as one element in a constellation of monuments spread across this part of Salisbury Plain. Just two miles away, for example, ground-penetrating radar has discovered horizontally laid stones, more than fifty, which were later incorporated into the circular enclosure known as Durrington Walls. This is one of several recent finds, based on earlier observations, including henge-like Neolithic and Bronze Age stone monuments, as well as burial mounds and traces of domestic life that have led to a more bustling picture of the area. In 2008 more conventional fieldwork was carried out, especially on the avenue north of ­Stonehenge and the excavation of one of the Aubrey Holes for evidence of cremations. But for decades, Stonehenge was known to the general public as a momentarily startling, pop-up presence, instantly recognisable, seen against the sky from the main A303 road running across Salisbury Plain. While such a view is still attainable, a good deal else has changed for the visitor who goes close to the site.

In recent obituaries of Sir Jocelyn Stevens, a former chairman of English Heritage, one of the few positive remarks common to all accounts of him concerned his project to rid Stonehenge of its degrading presentation and depressing access.1 Not all of his masterplan has materialised but there is no doubt that improvements recently carried out have been enormously beneficial. Of prime importance is a new Visitor Centre (opened a year ago), about a mile from the monument and not visible from it. It is a ­seemingly light-weight, canopied structure held up by a soaring forest of slim steel poles, in deliberate contrast to the great earth-bound stones of the henge (Fig.I). It holds two ‘pods’, one primarily for an extensive shop and café, the other for an introductory exhibition of objects, texts and film which is remarkably clear and absorbing (although complaints have been received over the display of ­skeletons from nearby graves). The Centre was designed by the Australian architectural firm of Denton Corker Marshall at a cost of £27 million (which includes the turfing over of part of the A303 byroad, running perilously close to the site). A group of ‘new-build’ Neolithic dwellings erected near the Visitor Centre might easily be removed when the future grows tired of them.2

In the first months, there were teething troubles, particularly an apparent underestimation in the frequency of conveyance from the Centre to the monument, by small, Land Rover-pulled ­carriages. But their sluggish pace and gradual approach over rising ground have the advantage of surprise when the stones appear. Visitors on foot now circle the perimeter, obtaining several ­different impressions from particular viewpoints – from the tight, rigorous plan of the structure through to a sense of chaotic ruin like a game of dominoes after someone knocks a table leg. Also apparent, and moving to discover, is the precise position John Constable assumed to make his two drawings in July 1820, from which he painted his great watercolour of Stonehenge, ­currently in the exhibition of his work at the Victoria & Albert Museum. And the changing skies of an autumn day rapidly transport the stones from Gothick romance and Hammer Horror to the familiar silhouette seen against a luminous blue.

English Heritage manages Stonehenge itself; the surrounding extensive landscape is owned and run by the National Trust. Their partnership appears to have worked well. There is more to do, however, particularly the continuing clearance of the previous ­visitor facilities and a decision is imminent as to a proposed ­tunnel through which the congested A303 would be taken (diminishing the noise and pollution but depriving travellers of the famous view). An earlier plan for this (and a new visitor centre) was ­cancelled by the Government in 2007, just a year after the ­National Trust had delivered its most serious warning to date against the increasing mismanagement of the site and its immediate surroundings. We can only hope that the improvements will continue without an excess of commercialised ‘heritage’.

Each age has unfurled the flag of its own beliefs and concerns above Stonehenge. The history of its interpretation is one of extraordinary gullibility and theoretical fashion in the face of very few facts. At the same time it has inspired a raft of works by artists and writers which, perhaps, only a great work of art itself could do. Part of the magnetism of Stonehenge lies it its inexplicable, dumb presence. One might almost hope that no further explanation is proved and that the stones will forever harbour their inviolable reserve.

1    For example, ‘Sir Jocelyn Stevens’, Guardian (14th October 2014).
2    English Heritage has issued a new guidebook by Julian Richards (£4.99; ISBN 978-1-84802-240-9), and Rosemary Hill’s excellent Stonehenge (2008) is available in paperback (Profile Books, London; £8.99; ISBN 978-1-86197-880-6).