Full circle
English Heritage has finally overcome problems with finance and planning to open a new visitor centre at Stonehenge. Simon Stephens reports
Many mysteries surround Stonehenge. Who built the monument, when and why? But for many years there was a more modern mystery to solve – how to create a new visitor centre at the World Heritage Site.
The first planning application was made in 1991 and was followed by numerous other proposals that fell by the wayside as they were judged too expensive, complex or impractical for this internationally famous monument.
But all the wrangling and controversy was largely forgotten on 18 December when English Heritage opened a visitor centre at Airmen’s Corner, which is 1.5 miles from the stones.
The centre is part of a wider £27m improvement programme that will now see visitors taken to the stones on a 10-minute shuttle ride. Once there, they can explore the monument’s surroundings, including areas that have been reconnected to the stone circle following the closure of the A344 road.
“The first planning application was put in 22 years ago and there have been at least four different locations where planning permission has been put in and enquiries have been held and planning battles have been fought,” says Simon Thurley, the chief executive of English Heritage.
“In the end this was the location that the fewest number of people objected to.”
A fine balance
There were many challenges to creating the centre, but the main problem was how to conserve the stones while providing a high-quality experience for the public. Balancing the needs of visitors against conservation requirements was complicated for a number of reasons.
For a start, there are so many stakeholders, ranging from the National Trust, which owns a lot of the surrounding land, through to the pagan groups who descend on the site during the winter and summer solstices.
There were also complex traffic management issues to deal with, especially the A344, which has been closed, and the A303, which has not.
It was also difficult to find a solution that could cope with the challenges created by the number of visitors. This has been growing steadily, from about 20,000 a year in the 1920s, 550,000 in the 1970s, to more than one million a year now.
“One of the problems we have had with Stonehenge is that everybody comes in a very short period in the summer and each day everyone comes in a very short part of the day,” Thurley says.
“What this new building and us selling timed tickets and working very closely with the coach trade will do, is spread the visitors and give a much better experience for everybody.”
The new centre is designed to cope better with these large numbers of people and give them the improved experience that Thurley is looking for. And anything would be better than the appalling facilities they replaced, which were far nearer the stones, but wholly inadequate for the 20th century, let alone the 21st.
They included a 1960s car park, Portakabin loos, no indoor catering, very little interpretation and a walk through a concrete tunnel that was reminiscent of an inner-city underpass.
The new visitor centre, designed by Denton Corker Marshall, means that English Heritage can offer education facilities, an indoor cafe, permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, and all the other facilities that people now expect.
Virtual access
Interpretation is also light years ahead of what was on offer before, but again there were challenges.
The exhibition design is by Haley Sharpe, whose director, Alisdair Hinshelwood, says that research showed that visitors wanted the one thing that English Heritage could not give them – access to the stone circle.
Because of concerns about damage being caused to the stones and the immediate landscape, only very small groups can enter the circle on specially arranged visits that take place early in the morning or late in the evening outside the visitor centre’s normal opening times.
For the vast majority of visitors that cannot get inside the circle, Haley Sharpe has worked with audiovisual specialist Centre Screen to create a 360-degree virtual experience that lets people “stand in the stones”.
Hinshelwood also says that the permanent exhibition is not huge, so the time people spend there could be just 10-15 minutes. As a result, a few key messages have to be communicated in this short period.
“People, landscape and meaning were the messages that drove the interpretation,” he says. “Part of the brief was not to produce a centre that would massively increase visitor numbers. Instead, for the number of visitors they get, the aim was to increase the quality of the experience and to try and reflect some of the contemporary thinking about Stonehenge.”
New research
The contemporary part is important as there is a constant stream of new research about Stonehenge that changes people’s ideas about who created it and what it is for. One high-profile example is the Stonehenge Riverside Project, led by Mike Parker Pearson from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London.
The temporary exhibition programme is designed to reflect the latest thinking and the first offering, Set in Stone? How Our Ancestors Saw Stonehenge, charts over 800 years of ideas and debate on who built Stonehenge and when.
The interpretation at the centre has also been enriched by the relationship English Heritage has formed with two local museums – Salisbury Museum and Wiltshire Museum in Devizes (see below).
Many archaeologists are pleased with the improvements at Stonehenge, particularly the closure of the A344, which has helped to reconnect Stonehenge to its surroundings.
“Over the years there have been a number of proposals to deal with what has been called the ‘national disgrace’ that is Stonehenge and we think the solution that English Heritage has come up with is a good one,” says Mike Heyworth, the director of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA).
“It was vital for the A344 to close as it was always a real difficulty and English Heritage has to be applauded for opening up the landscape.”
Heyworth says that the CBA still has some concerns, particularly the impact that the land train that takes people to the stones might have on the environment.
There are others who think that the visitor centre is still not in the right place.
“It is too far away and I think it is unfortunate that people will be taken in the train rather than walking, where they would have got a sense of the landscape,” says Tim Schadla-Hall, a reader in public archaeology at UCL, who nonetheless welcomes the fact that something has been done after so long.
“The key to Stonehenge is the landscape and it remains to be seen what you can get people to understand about that.”
There is also the cost of visiting Stonehenge, which has increased sharply now the visitor centre is open. The adult entry price has more than doubled to £16.30 while a special ticket to the stone circle has gone from £14.90 to £21.
Road closure?
Also, as Thurley says, managing entry to Stonehenge will be crucial to the success of the visitor centre. There will be further developments that will add to the visitor experience, particularly the creation of a group of reconstructed Neolithic houses that will show where the builders of Stonehenge may have lived. Further ahead, English Heritage still wants the section of the A303 that passes the stones to be shut.
“The crucial thing is to close the A303,” Thurley says. “It is English Heritage’s view that the answer has to be some sort of tunnel. It is imperative that the road goes and the stones are returned to the tranquillity of the chalk downland in which they were built.”
In the meantime, the improved Stonehenge should have a broader impact on local museums, regional tourism and on English Heritage itself as it moves towards becoming a self-financing charity in 2023.
The new visitor centre at Stonehenge in Wiltshire opened last month. A shuttle service takes visitors on the 1.5-mile journey from the centre to the stones.
An important part of English Heritage’s redevelopment at Stonehenge has been the relationship that it has forged with two local independent museums – Salisbury Museum and Wiltshire Museum in Devizes.
Both museums have archaeological finds in their collections from the World Heritage Site that have gone on display at the new visitor centre. In return, English Heritage is promoting the two museums to its visitors.
Wiltshire Museum has opened a £750,000 exhibition that is displaying 500 Stonehenge-period objects, including 30 pieces of gold treasure that have rarely been seen in public.
Later this year, Salisbury Museum will unveil its new Archaeology of Wessex gallery. As at Wiltshire Museum, the gallery will place the story of Stonehenge in its wider chronological and regional context.
David Dawson, the director of the Wiltshire Museum, is pleased at the way that the relationship between the two museums and English Heritage has developed. He says it is mutually beneficial and describes it as an arrangement where everyone wins. “There has been really positive supportive from English Heritage throughout the process,” he says.
Adrian Green, the director of Salisbury Museum, is also enthusiastic. “I have been really impressed how keen they are to work with us,” he says. “We have tried to work out complementary approaches to the story so people don’t go to all three places and see the same thing. It is trying to be joined up in how we work together.”
It also seems to have worked for English Heritage. “One of the big objectives of the new visitor centre is not only to encourage people to see the stones but to get out and go to the other two museums that hold the collections that really help explain this landscape and these monuments,” says Simon Thurley, the chief executive of English Heritage.
The first planning application was made in 1991 and was followed by numerous other proposals that fell by the wayside as they were judged too expensive, complex or impractical for this internationally famous monument.
But all the wrangling and controversy was largely forgotten on 18 December when English Heritage opened a visitor centre at Airmen’s Corner, which is 1.5 miles from the stones.
The centre is part of a wider £27m improvement programme that will now see visitors taken to the stones on a 10-minute shuttle ride. Once there, they can explore the monument’s surroundings, including areas that have been reconnected to the stone circle following the closure of the A344 road.
“The first planning application was put in 22 years ago and there have been at least four different locations where planning permission has been put in and enquiries have been held and planning battles have been fought,” says Simon Thurley, the chief executive of English Heritage.
“In the end this was the location that the fewest number of people objected to.”
A fine balance
There were many challenges to creating the centre, but the main problem was how to conserve the stones while providing a high-quality experience for the public. Balancing the needs of visitors against conservation requirements was complicated for a number of reasons.
For a start, there are so many stakeholders, ranging from the National Trust, which owns a lot of the surrounding land, through to the pagan groups who descend on the site during the winter and summer solstices.
There were also complex traffic management issues to deal with, especially the A344, which has been closed, and the A303, which has not.
It was also difficult to find a solution that could cope with the challenges created by the number of visitors. This has been growing steadily, from about 20,000 a year in the 1920s, 550,000 in the 1970s, to more than one million a year now.
“One of the problems we have had with Stonehenge is that everybody comes in a very short period in the summer and each day everyone comes in a very short part of the day,” Thurley says.
“What this new building and us selling timed tickets and working very closely with the coach trade will do, is spread the visitors and give a much better experience for everybody.”
The new centre is designed to cope better with these large numbers of people and give them the improved experience that Thurley is looking for. And anything would be better than the appalling facilities they replaced, which were far nearer the stones, but wholly inadequate for the 20th century, let alone the 21st.
They included a 1960s car park, Portakabin loos, no indoor catering, very little interpretation and a walk through a concrete tunnel that was reminiscent of an inner-city underpass.
The new visitor centre, designed by Denton Corker Marshall, means that English Heritage can offer education facilities, an indoor cafe, permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, and all the other facilities that people now expect.
Virtual access
Interpretation is also light years ahead of what was on offer before, but again there were challenges.
The exhibition design is by Haley Sharpe, whose director, Alisdair Hinshelwood, says that research showed that visitors wanted the one thing that English Heritage could not give them – access to the stone circle.
Because of concerns about damage being caused to the stones and the immediate landscape, only very small groups can enter the circle on specially arranged visits that take place early in the morning or late in the evening outside the visitor centre’s normal opening times.
For the vast majority of visitors that cannot get inside the circle, Haley Sharpe has worked with audiovisual specialist Centre Screen to create a 360-degree virtual experience that lets people “stand in the stones”.
Hinshelwood also says that the permanent exhibition is not huge, so the time people spend there could be just 10-15 minutes. As a result, a few key messages have to be communicated in this short period.
“People, landscape and meaning were the messages that drove the interpretation,” he says. “Part of the brief was not to produce a centre that would massively increase visitor numbers. Instead, for the number of visitors they get, the aim was to increase the quality of the experience and to try and reflect some of the contemporary thinking about Stonehenge.”
New research
The contemporary part is important as there is a constant stream of new research about Stonehenge that changes people’s ideas about who created it and what it is for. One high-profile example is the Stonehenge Riverside Project, led by Mike Parker Pearson from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London.
The temporary exhibition programme is designed to reflect the latest thinking and the first offering, Set in Stone? How Our Ancestors Saw Stonehenge, charts over 800 years of ideas and debate on who built Stonehenge and when.
The interpretation at the centre has also been enriched by the relationship English Heritage has formed with two local museums – Salisbury Museum and Wiltshire Museum in Devizes (see below).
Many archaeologists are pleased with the improvements at Stonehenge, particularly the closure of the A344, which has helped to reconnect Stonehenge to its surroundings.
“Over the years there have been a number of proposals to deal with what has been called the ‘national disgrace’ that is Stonehenge and we think the solution that English Heritage has come up with is a good one,” says Mike Heyworth, the director of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA).
“It was vital for the A344 to close as it was always a real difficulty and English Heritage has to be applauded for opening up the landscape.”
Heyworth says that the CBA still has some concerns, particularly the impact that the land train that takes people to the stones might have on the environment.
There are others who think that the visitor centre is still not in the right place.
“It is too far away and I think it is unfortunate that people will be taken in the train rather than walking, where they would have got a sense of the landscape,” says Tim Schadla-Hall, a reader in public archaeology at UCL, who nonetheless welcomes the fact that something has been done after so long.
“The key to Stonehenge is the landscape and it remains to be seen what you can get people to understand about that.”
There is also the cost of visiting Stonehenge, which has increased sharply now the visitor centre is open. The adult entry price has more than doubled to £16.30 while a special ticket to the stone circle has gone from £14.90 to £21.
Road closure?
Also, as Thurley says, managing entry to Stonehenge will be crucial to the success of the visitor centre. There will be further developments that will add to the visitor experience, particularly the creation of a group of reconstructed Neolithic houses that will show where the builders of Stonehenge may have lived. Further ahead, English Heritage still wants the section of the A303 that passes the stones to be shut.
“The crucial thing is to close the A303,” Thurley says. “It is English Heritage’s view that the answer has to be some sort of tunnel. It is imperative that the road goes and the stones are returned to the tranquillity of the chalk downland in which they were built.”
In the meantime, the improved Stonehenge should have a broader impact on local museums, regional tourism and on English Heritage itself as it moves towards becoming a self-financing charity in 2023.
The new visitor centre at Stonehenge in Wiltshire opened last month. A shuttle service takes visitors on the 1.5-mile journey from the centre to the stones.
Local connection
An important part of English Heritage’s redevelopment at Stonehenge has been the relationship that it has forged with two local independent museums – Salisbury Museum and Wiltshire Museum in Devizes.
Both museums have archaeological finds in their collections from the World Heritage Site that have gone on display at the new visitor centre. In return, English Heritage is promoting the two museums to its visitors.
Wiltshire Museum has opened a £750,000 exhibition that is displaying 500 Stonehenge-period objects, including 30 pieces of gold treasure that have rarely been seen in public.
Later this year, Salisbury Museum will unveil its new Archaeology of Wessex gallery. As at Wiltshire Museum, the gallery will place the story of Stonehenge in its wider chronological and regional context.
David Dawson, the director of the Wiltshire Museum, is pleased at the way that the relationship between the two museums and English Heritage has developed. He says it is mutually beneficial and describes it as an arrangement where everyone wins. “There has been really positive supportive from English Heritage throughout the process,” he says.
Adrian Green, the director of Salisbury Museum, is also enthusiastic. “I have been really impressed how keen they are to work with us,” he says. “We have tried to work out complementary approaches to the story so people don’t go to all three places and see the same thing. It is trying to be joined up in how we work together.”
It also seems to have worked for English Heritage. “One of the big objectives of the new visitor centre is not only to encourage people to see the stones but to get out and go to the other two museums that hold the collections that really help explain this landscape and these monuments,” says Simon Thurley, the chief executive of English Heritage.