Stonehenge & things to do

The main event

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Stonehenge

• Under 3 miles from the hotel
• About 4 minutes by car to the stones
• English Heritage, ticketed

Stonehenge was built in stages, starting around 5,000 years ago. The big sarsen stones that everyone pictures went up about 2500 BC. Nobody wrote down why. That is a large part of the appeal: you stand there, look at lintels weighing several tonnes that were shaped and lifted without metal tools, and make up your own mind.

The hotel is on the road that leads to the monument. Leave our door, drive west, and the stones appear on the plain to your right within a few minutes.

How a visit works

You cannot drive up to the stones themselves. Everyone starts at the English Heritage visitor centre, which sits about a mile and a half west of the circle, so the drive from the hotel is a little longer than the distance to the monument suggests. Park there, collect your tickets, and then either take the shuttle bus to the stones or walk across the fields, which takes most people around half an hour each way.

At the stones a path runs right round the circle. You are kept a short distance back, close enough to see the tool marks in good light. The visitor centre has an exhibition of objects found in the landscape, a group of reconstructed Neolithic houses you can go inside, a cafe and a shop.

English Heritage suggests allowing about two hours. If you walk to the stones and take the exhibition slowly, give it three.

Booking tickets

• Book ahead on the English Heritage website. Entry is by timed ticket. Booking in advance guarantees your slot and usually costs less than paying on the day.
• Members still need to book. English Heritage members and National Trust members get in free, but should reserve a time slot in the same way.
• Check opening times before you travel. Hours change with the season, and last entry is well before closing time.
• Want to stand among the stones? English Heritage runs Stone Circle Experience visits outside normal opening hours, early in the morning or in the evening, which let a small group walk inside the circle. They sell out a long way ahead.

Stonehenge tickets and opening times on the English Heritage website

When to go

Coach tours from London and Bath arrive in the late morning and fill the middle of the day. The first slot of the morning and the last couple of the afternoon are noticeably quieter, and the low light at both ends of the day is kinder to photographs.

This is where staying in Amesbury pays off. Day-trippers cannot easily make the first slot. You can finish breakfast and still be there for it.

In winter, book a late slot and you may catch the sun going down behind the stones. Wrap up, because the plain is open and the wind has nothing to stop it.

The solstices

At the summer and winter solstices English Heritage normally opens the stones for free so that people can gather inside the circle for sunrise. Thousands come in midsummer, the roads around Amesbury are busy all night, and rooms here book up early. If you want to be part of it, reserve well ahead. If you want a quiet visit, pick another week.

Practical points

• Much of the site is outdoors with no shelter. Bring a coat even in July.
• English Heritage offers an audio guide you can download to your phone before you go.
• Pet dogs are not allowed at the stone circle, only assistance dogs. Check English Heritage's current policy if you are travelling with yours.
• The landscape around the stones belongs to the National Trust and is free to walk. The burial mounds on King Barrow Ridge and the long earthwork called the Cursus are older than most of what you see in the circle.

Woodhenge

• On the north side of Amesbury, near Durrington
• Free
• Open in daylight hours

Woodhenge is what Stonehenge might have looked like if its builders had used tree trunks. Six rings of timber posts stood here around 2500 BC, the same period as the sarsen circle. The wood rotted away thousands of years ago and the site was forgotten until the 1920s, when a pilot noticed rings of dark spots in a wheat field from the air.

Today short concrete posts mark where each timber stood. It takes ten minutes to walk round, and it is worth doing straight after Stonehenge while the scale of the big monument is fresh in your mind. Near the centre, a small cairn of flints marks the spot where archaeologists found the grave of a child.

There is a small free car park beside the site. No tickets, no queue, and often nobody else there.

Amesbury itself

• On the doorstep

Amesbury is often described as the longest continuously inhabited settlement in Britain. The claim rests on a spring called Blick Mead, on the edge of town, where archaeologists have found evidence that people were camping, hunting and feasting thousands of years before Stonehenge existed, and kept coming back.

Amesbury History Centre tells that story and displays finds from Blick Mead. It is run by local volunteers, so check its opening days before you go.

The abbey church of St Mary and St Melor stands on Church Street, the same street as the hotel. Parts of it are Norman. According to legend, Queen Guinevere ended her days in a convent at Amesbury after the death of King Arthur.

The River Avon loops round the town, and there are level walks along it if you want to stretch your legs before dinner.

Salisbury Cathedral and Magna Carta

• About 15 minutes from the hotel
• South on the A345

Salisbury Cathedral has the tallest church spire in Britain, at 123 metres. You will see it from miles away as you drive in. The main body of the building went up in a single campaign in the 13th century, which is why it looks so consistent compared with other English cathedrals that were added to over hundreds of years.

Three things to see inside:

• Magna Carta. The Chapter House holds one of only four surviving original copies from 1215, and the best preserved of them.
• The medieval clock. Made around 1386, it has no face and is one of the oldest working clocks in the world.
• The tower tour. A guided climb up inside the roof space to the base of the spire, with views across the city and the water meadows. Book ahead, and skip it if you dislike heights or narrow stairs.

Outside, the Cathedral Close is the largest in Britain and a pleasant place to walk. The Salisbury Museum, on the Close, displays many of the finds from the Stonehenge landscape, including the Amesbury Archer. He was buried near Amesbury around 2300 BC with the richest set of grave goods from that period found in Britain, and tests on his teeth showed he grew up in central Europe.

The city itself has a market in the main square on Tuesdays and Saturdays, plenty of independent shops and some good pubs. Half a day is enough for the cathedral and a walk. Add the museum and lunch and it fills a day.

Salisbury Cathedral visitor information

The coast and Southampton

Wiltshire has no coastline, but the south coast is close enough for a day out. Bournemouth has miles of sandy beach and a pier. Weymouth, further west, has a sheltered bay with a Georgian seafront and puts you at the start of the Jurassic Coast.

Southampton is the main cruise port for the south of England. If your ship docks or sails from there, a night in Amesbury lets you see Stonehenge at your own pace before or after the voyage, without joining a shore excursion coach.