We decided to visit Stonehenge today, on a whim. Entry price was an eye-watering £17:50 each, reduced to £15:00 if you gift aided. There was a shuttle bus to ferry you to the site from the wholly awful visitor centre.
So we decided to walk to the stones, via the open access land surrounding the site. Once there though there was a man wanting our tickets. Having no such things he told us that we could look over the wire fence. And that free entry will be available after September 23rd.
As I see it the place is being treated as a cash cow.
A bit like York Minster then. £10 a head. I always thought places of worship didn't charge an entry fee? We didnt bother. Might've made a donation if we'd got in without a fee. I'm sure Durham cathedral doesn't charge & its MILES better!
Did you see the dewdrops cry?
That was my favourite bit.
You can actually park in the little road right opposite the stones.
We only found this out [b]after[/b] spending an hour in a traffic jam because this idiot decided to drive past, on a whim.
Damn you whims.....
We decided to visit Stonehenge today, on a whim. Entry price was an eye-watering £17:50 each, reduced to £15:00 if you gift aided. There was a shuttle bus to ferry you to the site from the wholly awful visitor centre.
To look at a few stones shoved in a field by aliens on a job creation scheme many years ago.
To look at a few stones shoved in a field by aliens on a job creation scheme many years ago.
[Tannoy]
JHJ to the forum, please.
JHJ to the forum, please.
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😉
Go on the solstice.. Take a couple litres of cider and some cheap eckys
Better still I've got a cycling route that approaches Stonehenge from The Cursus, past the stones then cross over to Normanton Down which is an SSSI and full of tumuli. Doesn't cost a penny.
As a tourist destination.
Bit rubbish.
As a freebie, it'd be good. If there was no one else there.
When I was a young girl (two centuries ago) you could walk freely amongst them. Still Avebury has a bloomin' 'A' road cutting through the middle of theirs. 😯 If the NT could charge for that they would.
Woodhenge is where it's at!
Durrington FTW! 😀
At least it's better than the Doctor Who Experience, £50 for a family ticket - despite what they tell you, the 'experience' lasts 7 minutes and it's a rehash of 'Armageddon' at Euro Disney followed by a small meseum of costumes from the TV show, once you've sniffed Kylie's outfit there's not much else to do.
sniffed Kylie's outfit there's not much else to do.
Still, worth it for £50 then?
Photo of me back in the day when not only was it free but you could sit and climb on the stones.
OP I appreciate your pain, bit of a rip off but the stones are very popular with tourists and if they are willing to pay then I can see the logic of charging.
@essel chafing for major churches is common practice these days, here and abroad. The church is not obliged to provide free entry it was a historical precedent that their doors where open for people to pray at any time. You can generally get in free by attending a service.
Woodhenge is where it's at!
Bollocks. It's all about Strawhenge these days. That first little pig was a trendsetter.
😆
Ripon Cathedral is free, it has a 1300 year old crypt in it. Christmas is a good time to visit they have a lot of choir practises. Impressive acoustics.
Can I take my bike around Woodhenge and Durrington Wall?
Me and the (now ex) missus visited Stonehenge a few years ago. Well, we visited the car park near Stonehenge, saw the entry price and drove back to Avebury. We also walked up Silbury Hill and spent some time in and around West Kennet Long Barrow. Which were all fee free.
Ripping folk off with exorbitant entry fees shouldn't be the National Trust's remit - sadly, in my (limited) experience, it appears to be. See also Whitby Abbey and Urquhart Castle for more examples.
Yep Durham Cathedral has a donation box. Stuck a tenner in it last week, seemed a reasonable price for looking inside an amazing building. Kids enjoyed the fossilised remains of random fish in some of the granite work. Oh and the Lego Cathedral model.
In their defence Stonehenge is English Heritage, not National Trust...
Furry muff, I stand corrected.
Go on [s]the solstice[/s] an equinox
Far fewer attendees, nice atmosphere, free and you can potter round the stones
chafing for major churches is common practice these days
I thought they were trying to do away with that?
I'm not a big stone henge fan but I think English Heritage (and the NT) have a policy of using cash from very popular sites to pay for the upkeep of other sites. These othee sites may be of great value but can't be self supporting. So cash cows like SH are justified on this basis.
Callanish is free.
English Heritage is the same as The National Trust, they seem to deliberately set the entrance rates high to encourage you to become a member. All goes to maintaining their properties though.
bring back the festival, we need more running battles between travelers and the police.
As someone very local to Stonehenge, the visitors centre is a disaster. The closure of the A344 due to English Heritage's lobbying has forced all traffic through the Longbarrow roundabout which is a very dangerous situation. Foreigners who can't understand roundabouts have no idea an impatient drivers refusing to stop off the A303 are a bad mix.
The traffic backlog due to this roundabout and rubbernecking idiots on the 303 having a look at the henge, plus people turning off into the byway, make people's Sat Navs re-route them through the local villages.
It always was bad here but now it's twice as bad (I think that's the order of magnitude traffic studies have shown).
All because EH wanted to shut an ancient road and refuse to plant trees to block the view of the stones from the road.
Thankfully villagers don't pay because the stones were gifted to EH on condition it was free to locals. I would never pay EH anything after this anyhow.
Plenty more standing stones you can go and visit without the tourist crowds and for free.
I blame Spinal Tap tbsoh
£88 gets you an EH family membership for a year.
If you visit more than 3 or 4 EH sites a year it pays for itself.
I think it's good that these popular spots pay for and take the heat off other less popular sites. There are better places to visit partly because of places like Stonehenge. Snowdon has a similar effect in Snowdonia. Also the prices quotes are wrong which I suppose helps the rantiness a bit 8)
Callanish is free
Yeah, but they're tiny...
Orkney is where it's at. Stones Of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar are really ****ing massive and seriously impressive (and free). And whilst you're there there's also Maes Howe and Skara Brae (not free).
Back to Callanais next week though... 😀
The closure of the A344 due to English Heritage's lobbying has forced all traffic through the Longbarrow roundabout which is a very dangerous situation. Foreigners who can't understand roundabouts have no idea an impatient drivers refusing to stop off the A303 are a bad mix.
Don't get me started on that bloomin' roundabout! Last week, despite the 'keep clear' box an imbecile was sitting in it which meant I couldn't get around the roundabout. I totally lost it and became shouty and sweary at his stupidity.
The only good thing about Stonehenge is the cafe in the centre of Amesbury best breakfast ever and no traffic on in hat for aweful A303 with rubber neckers ,the amount of time Ive wasted there en route to Chitterine is untrue
@nickel, you are correct about my having misquoted the admission prices, I put them the wrong way round. The giftaid is the more expensive. And I notice that the EH website says that the prices are lower than they really are.
And as mentioned by others, the traffic behaviour at the roundabout is interesting. We watched as a car tried to reverse back to the exit it had missed.
they really need to put up trees by the side of the road adjacent to stone henge as everyone slows to gawp at the stones. Its traffic jam all the way to the roundabout.
An old boss took the off sump of his hire car whilst gawping but that is another story 🙂
We had a run in with the ticket man too. We'd cycled down the byway from Larkhill and stopped where it crosses the remains of the A344 to have a look at the changes. We got told we weren't allowed to be there without tickets, so I said we're on the right of way to which he replied you can't stop and will have to go back to Larkhill!
I'm really glad I don't drive on the A303 much now, but on the plus side the stationary traffic did make it quick and easy to cross over it by bike and back to Yarnbury Castle.
Ripping folk off with exorbitant entry fees shouldn't be the National Trust's remit - sadly, in my (limited) experience, it appears to be.
£8 per month for free entry and free parking at hundreds of nice places all over the country.
Seems reasonable to me. We make good use of it.
And reciprocal agreements with national trust organisations abroad as well. Ours (scottish) paid for itself in 3 weeks. Great value.
Forgot about the overseas agreements.
Scotland
Australia
Bermuda
The Bahamas
Barbados
Canada
Cayman Islands
Guernsey
Isle of Man
Italy
Jersey
Malta
New Zealand
Zimbabwe
Ripping folk off with exorbitant entry fees shouldn't be the National Trust's remit - sadly, in my (limited) experience, it appears to be. See also Whitby Abbey and Urquhart Castle for more examples.
In their defence Stonehenge is English Heritage, not National Trust...
As is Whitby Abbey. Urquhart Castle is Historic Scotland. Any examples of your limited experience that are actually National Trust?
We went to Stonehenge last week with the kids. EH members so cost us nothing. Pretty easy to make an annual membership "pay for itself" if you pop into the occasional abbey or castle ruins on your travels. I don't have a problem with a few quid going to support our history. It's less than one visit to a private sector theme park, and much better vfm imho.
you can get fairly close to the stones without paying a penny as its a byway at the side of the fence 🙂
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When I was a young girl (two centuries ago) you could walk freely amongst them. Still Avebury has a bloomin' 'A' road cutting through the middle of theirs. If the NT could charge for that they would.
Actually, Avebury has an entire village built in the middle of it, complete with pub, so apart from the main NT car park, it will always be free.
As is the pub car park, if you get there fairly early in the day, then you can explore the stones and the rest of the circle, have a walk across to Silbury Hill and West Kennet long barrow, then back to have a pint and something to eat in the Red Lion.
You can also take a walk along the Herepath up to the Ridgeway and across into Fyfield Down to see where the stones came from, or do a loop along a byway towards the A4, that joins the Ridgeway near the point it meets the A4, then back along the Ridgeway and back down the Herepath into Avebury. Much nicer than Stonehenge, really.
I do know of somewhere else just outside the village where there's enough space for two or three cars to park, which I used today, as it happens, but I don't advertise its location, for obvious reasons.
I live 20 mins west of the stones and used to commute past them daily. The new road layout is far worse than before, I'm glad I don't have to drive that way anymore. If any Stonehenge locals fancy getting out for a pedal at some point give me a shout, email in profile.
