Has anyone done the Stone circle access on their own? Is a tour included, or audio tape? If you do the regular tour, during the day, what is included? I understand a new visitors centre is to open in 2005, any insight on this and parking???

I went last May and did a regular tour. I really wish that we would have done a private access tour. I heard that term breifly on the day of my own tour. They have blocked a circle off around it. You really are pretty far away and I thought it would have been much better to get closer. It was neat, don't get me wrong, I just wish I had more access.

You could rent one of those things for your ears to listen to at different points while you walk around it. I had a booklet which I read while we walked around it.

They talked about a new visitors center when I was there. We had to park on the opposite side of the road and walk under a tunnel. I think they were doing away with that, but I am not sure. I cannot remember the specifics.

I think it depends on your true interest in Stonehenge and neolithic history. We just took the audio tour a few years ago and that was fine with us.

The circle was roped off but we had no problem seeing it or taking photos. If you really want to walk among the stones, then you should probably check into the special access tours. Astral Travels (www.astraltravels.co.uk) offers one. And it looks like you can apply for a special access tour on the English Heritage website (that's new since we were there.)

The special access tours are usually done for groups. I've never known it to be available for an individual. Try www.astraltravels.co.uk for tours that include the inner circle and a chance to get beyond the ropes that surround the site.
If you are heading to Stonehenge by car then you will find plenty of parking. If it is busy then they just shift the local sheep and you slot your car in their recently vacated field.
The new visitor centre isn't scheduled to be open until 2008 so you'll have to put up with the rather limited facilities for awhile longer yet. The present visitor centre is a small "potting shed" advertising other English Heritage sites, there is a well stocked gift shop for all your Neolithic desk tidy and fridge magnet needs. A cafe exists with limited outdoor seating, used by people not eating as well so hard luck if you need to sit down with your Aubrey Ring doughnut and your Solstice extra frothy Latte. Toilets are provided by a temporary structure similar to the ones used by builders on a construction site, only a bit bigger.
The audio tour is included with your admission and is actually rather good, however revisionist theories (and post-revisionists, etc) make what it says obsolete in some pre-Historians eyes!!

I've done the Inner Circle tour with Astral, and we all thought it was a highlight of our 3-week trip. Our tour included Avebury, other Neolithic sites, side trips to see current crop circles, etc.

Last time I checked, the English Heritage page about Stonehenge said that individual arrangements for Inner Circle access were possible; IIRC, they used the term "special access."

Tour guides and audioguides are not available to people doing the inner circle tours, since by definition they're conducted off-hours, when the staff and gift shop aren't available. When we did our Inner Circle tour, there was an English Heritage staff member watching over us, but certainly more as a security measure than as a tour guide; our Astral guide was all we had.

We had access to the Stone circle with premiumtours.co.uk The tours are either sunrise or sunset so the visitor center isn't open. I think it's worth it.

I found this data somewhere in one of the threads last year and pasted it into a word doc to take with me. I didn't end up doing the tour, but it may give you the info that you need.

Stonehenge Private Access
Message: Here are a some addresses and phone numbers for English Heritage. A direct number to private access is 44 1980 626267 email: [email protected] and the office in Wiltshire 44 1980 625368 web site www.english-heritage.org.uk/stonehenge. I talked to a very helpful person at the office in Wiltshire today and made my reservation with her. Hope this helps. Deborah


Hope this helps!

Bill

I thought the Griswolds knocked all the stones over. Glad to know they got it fixed.

We did the audio tour on our own and thought is was good! We were there in late September and didn't see any new visitors centre going up. Parking was no problem when we were there. You just walk under the road to the site.
Enjoy. WT

English Heritage offers their own inner access tours so if I were going I'd check them out before paying for a group tour from London. A LOT lesss expensive.

I've been to Stonehenge many times - probably 15-20 over the last 30+ years. Before the fences went up, after the fences, and since the fences were replaced by what is essentially a very inobtrusive rope. Now you get quite close to one side of the circle and are farther away as you walk around them. The audio guide is excellent and you actually don't feel "fenced off". The main advantage to getting access inside the stones during out of hours visits is there are so few people there.

Wanderingtexan: The whole point of the new visitors center is it is not visible from Stonehenge. They are trying to return the area around the stones to a plain w/o any roads, car parks, visitors center, etc. It is quite a distance from the circle.

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I visited Stonehenge with London Walks and was quite happy with the length of time and how much of the Stones we saw.

Keith

Premium Tours also offers a tour with access inside the stones at sunset or sunrise.
Tour #02 Stonehenge/Lacock/Bath
http://www.premiumtours.co.uk/tours/?sType=olondon