English Heritage is offering visitors a rare chance to experience Stonehenge in solitude throughout August. Buyers of advance tickets will be automatically entered into a daily draw for 20 minutes alone inside the stone circle, a first since admission charges were introduced 125 years ago.
Guardian samples the solitude
To mark the initiative, the Guardian was granted 20 minutes inside the circle on Tuesday morning. Usually, the monument is cordoned off with rope barriers, and visitors view the stones from a surrounding path. For the visit, supervisor Nick Morabito unhooked the rope shortly after 9am. Rules remain: no touching, leaning, or sitting on the stones. However, the solitude allows for appreciation of the monument's heft and details—lichen patterns, fissures, and thistles poking from under stones. Carvings, including graffiti attributed to architect Christopher Wren, are visible.
Quiet but not silent
The site is quiet but not silent. The A303 passes nearby, but traffic is a hum, not a roar, and does not drown out skylarks, sheep, or the breeze through what Thomas Hardy called a “temple of the winds.” The experience offers time to ponder who built the monument 5,000 years ago and why. The spell broke at 9.35am when the first shuttle bus arrived, and a German family speed-walked to the circle but were kept behind the rope.
Staff cherish quiet moments
Morabito said he cherishes moments alone with the stones: “At the end of a busy summer’s day it’s lovely to sit in the circle for a few minutes and remember what it’s all about.” Security officer Ray Bulpitt relishes night shifts: “You hear the hares and sheep moving around.” Occasionally, interlopers try to gain access. “We had a couple last night,” Bulpitt said. “We asked them to leave – no problems.”
Spiritual place
Georgia Butters, English Heritage’s head of operations for Stonehenge, said spending time in the circle is special: “It is a spiritual place for many people but even if you’re not spiritual in that way there’s just something wonderful about the landscape – it has a presence, a stillness.” Other ways to get solitary access include fame—Barack Obama and Buzz Aldrin have visited—or paying nearly £1,500 for an “explorer tour.” At solstice, entry is free but crowded with drumming drowning out skylarks.
Draw details
Winners of the August draw may bring other members of their party who booked at the same time, or go completely alone. Butters said: “Everyone’s different, aren’t they? Some may want to run in and out of the stones, some may want to have a cup of tea there. They’re massive stones and there’s something about standing right next to one and getting the scale of them. It makes you think, how did people get these things here 5,000 years ago?” Some will take pictures for social media, which Butters said is fine, but she hopes they can also “spend some time and have a moment of peace.”
