5 tips for families visiting Stonehenge
1. Watch English Heritage’s animated history resources
On the English Heritage website, there are links to animated history videos, with one providing a brief overview of how Stonehenge was built. Similarly, there’s a short clip on BBC Bitesize about Stonehenge, and both these videos can help put a trip to Stonehenge in context for young visitors.
2. Be prepared for a walk (or a bus ride)
The Stonehenge car park and visitor centre is a 1.5-mile walk, or a short bus ride, from the prehistoric monument. This changed in 2013 when Stonehenge was transformed as an attraction and a new visitor and exhibition centre was opened. While I remember the parking lot being a stone throw from the monument previously, it now took us around 25 minutes to walk each way across the fields (mainly on uneven ground), and we then enjoyed looking for barrows, birds, cows and sheep. In my view, the addition of the walk made Stonehenge feel like an even more varied day trip from London, as it meant we spent around two hours at the attraction in total and had spent plenty of time outdoors. For visitors preferring to catch a bus from the visitor centre to the monument, the attraction’s buses ran around every 5 minutes.
3. Explore the outdoor gallery
Outside the visitor centre there are five Neolithic huts built based on archaeological evidence of houses found at Durrington Walls, and there’s also a huge replica sarsen stone shown on logs and tied with a rope. I think the small outdoor exhibition was great for families, since it showed how people could have lived at the time the monument was erected and how they could have moved huge stones without modern technology.
4. Look out for Covid changes
Face coverings are now required in the visitor centre, and when visiting in late August, we queued for around 10 minutes to see the exhibition, which I felt was a fitting place to start our Stonehenge trip.
5. Consider becoming a member of English Heritage
Stonehenge is an English Heritage site and members enjoy free entry to hundreds of historic sites. To me, it made sense to join this year as we’ve loved exploring the outdoors and seeing more of England at these strange times. Other English Heritage sites include Dover Castle, Darwin’s home Downe House, Battle Abbey and many more.
Related Posts
5 tips for families visiting Darwin’s home Down House →
15 outdoor attractions to visit in and around London →
5 things worth knowing before visiting Peppa Pig World →
