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The One With the Big Rocks

 One of my top bucket list items for coming to the UK was to go walk around the big pile of rocks known as Stonehenge. 

Built around 2500BC Stonehenge has continued to impress and confuse archaeologists and other scientists. As a self described history and archaeology geek I had to go. I just didn’t know when I would make the trek south to go and see it. The other problem I had was that the country’s third lockdown closed the monument temporarily. 

As I sat trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my day off today with it being a bank holiday, I had considered spending the day in London, or maybe going to Cardiff, and then it hit me this was the perfect time to go to Stonehenge. So I bought a ticket and prepped. 

I left the house for the train station and readied myself for the 2.5hr train ride to get to Salisbury, the city closest to Stonehenge. I sat reading a book I had purchased last month called Vagabonding (I highly recommend it if you want great advice on travelling). When my train arrived in Salisbury I got on a bus and headed to Stonehenge. 

The bus was equipped with an audio system that gave me some information about the henge before I got there. I also learned about a hill-fort called Old Sarum which had been continuously occupied from around 43AD to around 1100. The bus finally stopped at the Stonehenge Visitors Centre and I queued up to go look at the most famous circle of rocks in the world. 

When I could first see Stonehenge cresting the horizon it instantly seemed bigger than I had thought. Some of the inside rock sections stood around two stories high. The pictures don’t do the rocks justice. I popped in my headphones and listened to the audio tour of the monumental structure. The voice told me all about what the different stones were and what went into making them and what the different theories were on how they were moved. The average weight per stone was around 25,000 tonnes. And it is estimated that it would take 100 people to move a stone like that while it was on rollers or a sled. 

I also video called my dad from Stonehenge and I got to see the expression on his face when I turned the camera around to see the massive rocks behind me and say “Hey dad, I’m at Stonehenge.” (Of course I took lots of pictures too which can be found on my Flickr account.) 

I then took a couple mile hike to another smaller henge called Woodhenge which was made of five rings of logs. There also was a stone called the Cuckoo Stone that was just laying in the middle of a field. 

Overall, I loved visiting Stonehenge and I think that if you have the chance to do so I definitely recommend it. There is more to the area than just a circle of rocks. There are mounds and trails and other Neolithic structures around that really tell the story of early Britain. 

Thank you for reading this and I’ll write again. 

Best,

Tymon

Location: Salisbury SP4 7DE, UK

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