It may have taken five millennia, but Stonehenge finally has something it shockingly never had before: a dedicated visitors center. Opened last Wednesday, the sleek and environmentally sensitive complex serves as a staging area and information portal for the thousands of global visitors who make their way to the rural Wiltshire, England, site each day — enticed by those iconic 4,000 year-old stone circles.
Until last week, visiting Stonehenge was haphazard at best — downright unpleasant at worst. After navigating a car-packed highway that brutally bisected the monument’s original approach, travelers found zero in the way of a prehistoric backdrop to the mysterious giant monoliths.
Now, guests arrive at a stylish and inviting steel, glass and wood pavilion that’s at once utterly modern and completely at home within the rolling landscape. Inside, they’re greeted with an immersive, 360-degree virtual presentation that takes them through time. Set within Stonehenge’s inner circle, the display reveals how the monument must have looked to its creators, and offers the latest in archaeological thoughts about why those ancients went to such trouble to erect it in the first place. Hundreds of locally unearthed artifacts are also on display, as is the reconstructed bust of a 5,500-year-old man whose remains were found near the huge stones.
With the stage now properly set, guests climb aboard slow-moving Land Rover shuttles (reserved after Feb. 1 with timed tickets) for the mile-plus journey to Stonehenge itself, traveling along the same path once used by its builders.
The new center is part of a grand $44 million plan — decades in the making — to beautify the Stonehenge setting and improve its 21st-century experience. “We don’t want the stones to be divorced from the landscape any longer,” explained Simon Thurley, CEO of English Heritage, which oversees the monument. “Stonehenge is all about the landscape.”
To that end, grass is being re-sown along the course of the modern highway that leads to the site, and in April, a reconstructed Stone Age village will open just next to the center to reveal how Stonehenge’s architects likely lived.
Sadly, one thing that won’t change at Stonehenge is that visitors generally can’t venture within the inner circle. Since 1977, a low rope has surrounded the stones to keep them off limits to the masses and to prevent any further erosion of the site or damage to any further archaeological artifacts it might be hiding.
But if you must venture inside, come during the annual summer or winter solstice, when the site is opened freely to the public, which usually includes many modern-day Druids.
For a more intimate inner ring experience without the tourist hordes — special early-morning or late-evening Stone Circle Access visits are bookable in advance all year long via English Heritage (around $34.50 for adults, $20.50 for kids). Regular admission is around $25 for adults, $15 for kids.