Stonehenge

[MystyrMystyry]

If You've never been there (even if you have) you have to check this out

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/stonehenge/flash/panorama.swf

Click and scroll you mouse over it - it's amazing!

[billl]

Cool, and it's nice we got a crow "for scale"!

(I'm assuming that's a crow...)

[Patrick_Bateman]

I live 15 minutes from Sonehenge and it's a lot smaller than you imagine it to be. I go there for the summer solstice most years which is good fun. But in reality the stones are underwhelming.

[MystyrMystyry]

^eeyore

[billl]

I went there as a child, back when just anybody could climb up on them, and let me tell you--Stonehenge puts Woodhenge to shame, absolutely, at least from a child's perspective. Hadrian's Wall, as well.

[kasie]

I wonder if Patrick finds Stonehenge 'underwhelming' because visitors can no longer go up close to the stones. You have to view them from quite a distance away nowadays - they stand in a vast open space and you tends to lose perspective as there is nothing against which to measure them. I remember feeling a little disappointed when I visited them recently until I realised what was happening. Then I remembered too the colossal effort involved in building the place - and that gave me pause.

What is lacking is atmosphere - English Heritage herd you through set route to view the stones, over modern pathways with formal car parks, loos and gift shops, and any sense of mystery and amazement is lost. I realise EH has a statutory requirement to conserve the site but if you want atmosphere, the place to go is the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire, much smaller than Stonehenge, with natural sarcens rather than worked stones. On a winter's afternoon with the mist beginning to swirl, the hairs on the back of the neck start to rise.....

[Scheherazade]

When I visited the site, I was disappointed that we were not allowed to get near; however, the whole thing is not important because of the size or scale but because of the history behind it.

Once I visited a village that was 5000 years old, which was simply some underground caves interconnected... Nothing to be impressed by but just thinking that those caves were built so many centuries ago and have been standing since then...

Takes my breath away.

[Emil Miller]

Years ago I went to Bath with a Chinese girl whose English wasn't very good. She asked me if we could go to see "The big old building with large stones." I didn't know what she was talking about until she took out a map and pointed to Stonehenge, which is quite a long way from Bath.
I actually visited it when it was possible to walk among the stones. It was a bit disturbing when, considering its antiquity, you came across 'Wayne luvs Tracy' and similar banalities scratched on the columns.

[TacoButt]

Years ago I went to Bath with a Chinese girl.

So what, I showered with a Norwegian chick.

[Hawkman]

In fact it is still possible to get up close and personal with the stones but you have to do so by prior arrangement (and pay for the privilage). See the EH Stonehenge website for details. I took a couple of phots the other day, one of which has people walking around them to give a sense of their scale.

See Below.

By the way, The sight is definitely mysterious. I once had an old MGB GT with a knackered petrol gauge. I used to regularly drive past the stones to go to work. A mile before the stones the gauge would start to work, and when I was a mile past the site, it relapsed into not working. This is absolutely true, and I'll swear it on any stack of religeous objects you care to name!

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1134&pictureid=8857

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1134&pictureid=8858

[Patrick_Bateman]

I wonder if Patrick finds Stonehenge 'underwhelming' because visitors can no longer go up close to the stones. You have to view them from quite a distance away nowadays
It's not that. I think it's more to do with pre-conceived ideas of the stones and they didn't measure up. It is still eerie to drive by them and they always draw my attention when I do drive past but the only thing that impresses me is the logistics of erecting those columns millennia ago without crane and plant machinery.


During the solstice (which i go to most years) you can touch them and climb all over them while the druids do their thing all day and into the night.

Watching the sunrise over stonehenge when you are hungover 15 feet away is, however, quite something.

[Musicology]

More nonsense has been written on Stonehenge than on virtually any other structure in human history. One thing is sure. The ruling elites love it. Winston Churchill was a member of a Druid group.

[kiki1982]

The Priory of Sion, by any chance? :D

[prendrelemick]

If English Heritage want to do it up a bit I could come down in the JCB and put a few stones back up for them.