Things to See and Do at Stonehenge
The circle is one hour of the visit and the rest is worth planning for. This is what you walk past, in the order you meet it, plus the parts of the World Heritage landscape that most day trips drive straight through.
The six things you will actually see
The sarsen circle and its lintel ring
Thirty uprights once carried a continuous ring of lintels, locked together with tongue-and-groove joints cut by hand.
The trilithon horseshoe
Five pairs of the largest stones stand inside the circle, each pair carrying its own lintel on mortice and tenon joints.
The Heel Stone
A single unshaped sarsen outside the circle, aligned on the axis that catches the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset.
The bluestones
Smaller Welsh stones from the Preseli Hills, over 150 miles away, set between the sarsens and still the hardest part to explain.
The Avenue
An earthwork approach running north-east from the circle towards the midsummer sunrise, traceable across the field on a clear day.
The visitor centre and Neolithic houses
An exhibition of Neolithic finds and reconstructed houses you can walk into, a shuttle ride from the stones themselves.
The walk in — shuttle or fields
The stones are not beside the car park. A shuttle bus runs between the visitor centre and the monument field continuously, and it is covered by your admission, so it costs nothing extra on any departure that includes entry.
Walking it instead takes longer and is the better version in decent weather. The path crosses open chalk grassland and passes barrow cemeteries on the way, which gives you the approach the monument was built to be seen from. Coach groups with only an hour take the shuttle both ways; anyone with two hours should walk at least one leg.
The circuit around the stones, and where to stand
A surfaced path runs a full loop around the circle at a distance of a few metres. It takes about twenty minutes at a slow walk, and the whole point is that the monument changes completely as you move round it.
From the north-east the trilithons line up behind the outer ring and the structure reads as one solid mass. From the south-west the gaps open and you can see straight through to the far side. Stand on that side and you also get the clearest view of the bluestones, the small Welsh stones set inside the sarsen ring, which are easy to miss altogether from the other approach.
The best photographs come from walking the loop twice, once in each direction, which is exactly what two hours buys you and one hour does not.
The exhibition and the Neolithic houses
The visitor centre holds an exhibition of Neolithic finds excavated from the surrounding landscape, and outside it stands a group of reconstructed Neolithic houses. You can walk into them, and volunteers are often working inside.
Allow half an hour if your departure gives you two hours at the monument. If you only have one, the stones are the better use of it — the exhibition will still be there on a second visit and the light will not.
What lies beyond the fence
The World Heritage inscription covers a landscape, not a circle. Barrow cemeteries stand on the ridgelines in every direction, the Cursus runs for nearly three kilometres just north of the monument, and the Avenue leaves the circle towards the north-east. All of it is open access land you can walk, and almost nobody on a coach day does.
The rest of the World Heritage landscape
Stonehenge and Avebury were inscribed together in 1986 as a single property. Avebury is the larger circle of the two by a wide margin, it is free to walk into, and a village sits inside it — a contrast worth an hour of anyone’s day.
| Site | What it is | From the stones | Ticket | Which departure goes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avebury Stone Circle | A far larger circle with a village inside it, free to walk among | 25 miles north | Free | The Avebury day trip |
| West Kennet Long Barrow | A Neolithic chambered tomb you can enter | 26 miles north | Free | The Avebury day trip, weather permitting |
| Woodhenge | A timber circle marked out in concrete posts | 2 miles east | Free | None — independent visit |
| Durrington Walls | The huge henge where the builders are thought to have lived | 2 miles east | Free | None — independent visit |
| The Cursus | A 3km earthwork enclosure older than the stone circle | Walkable from the field | Free | Any, if you walk in from the centre |
| Old Sarum | An Iron Age hillfort and the first Salisbury Cathedral | 9 miles south | Paid | None — independent visit |
Two hours on the field, or one?
The half-days give a full two hours at the monument, which is the difference between seeing the circle and walking it twice. The combined days trade that for Bath, Windsor or Oxford.
What there is for children
It works better than most historic sites for a simple reason: it is outdoors and there is nothing to break. The Neolithic houses are hands-on, the shuttle is a novelty in itself, and the open field means nobody has to be quiet.
The harder part is the coach. Six hours door to door on a half-day is manageable; twelve and a half on a three-stop day is not, for most under-tens. One operator sets a minimum age of four, and the private Cotswolds car does not carry under-fours at all.
Plan the practical side on hours, tickets and getting there, read how the monument was built, or see what it takes to get inside the circle. Home: Stonehenge Tours From London.