STONEHENGE UPDATE - Francis Taylor
As anyone who has driven down the A303 recently will know, work has commenced on the new Visitor Centre and both the building itself and the car park are taking shape behind the hoardings. The new visitor centre is now reaching the latter
stages of construction and the transformation of the landscape surrounding
Stonehenge will begin imminently when the A344 road closes in June.
Wednesday 8 May saw the last piece of steel welded into the structure that supports the canopy roof above the new visitor centre. The gently rolling roof aims to mirror the contours of Salisbury Plain and helps the building fit discreetly into the landscape. Beneath the roof are two 'pods', which are almost complete: a glass one which will house the café, shop and education space; and a sweet chestnut-clad pod, containing exhibition galleries, membership area and toilets.
Loraine Knowles, Stonehenge Director, said: "It is fantastic to see the building taking shape and to see how well it sits in the landscape. Progress with the creation of the interior spaces for the museum galleries, education area, shop and cafe is equally exciting because it is now possible to see on the ground how these great new facilities will be experienced by our visitors."
The A344. Central to the vision of returning Stonehenge to a more tranquil and dignified setting is the closure of the A344 road that runs past the monument, almost touching the Heel Stone and severing the Stone Circle from the Avenue, its ancient processional approach.
The section of the road running closest to the moment, from Stonehenge Bottom (junction of A344 and A303) and Byway 12, is scheduled to close from 24 June. Over the summer work will start to remove the high fences along the road and the road surface itself will be removed and grassed over.
There will be continued access to Stonehenge on and after 24 June but motorists will need to use a diverted route via Longbarrow Roundabout (junction of A303 and A360) and onwards via Airman’s Corner (junction of A360 and A344). Motorists travelling west on the A303 will see a sign in the vicinity of Stonehenge Bottom indicating that they should continue straight ahead for Stonehenge. There will also be signs at Longbarrow Roundabout.
Test Building Neolithic Houses. Around 60 volunteers have just completed a test build of three Neolithic Houses at Old Sarum near Salisbury. The lessons learned from this experiment will help build the final houses at Stonehenge in 2014, which will be the highlight of the outdoor gallery at the new visitor centre.
Luke Winter, manager of the Ancient Technology Centre who was appointed by English Heritage to lead the project and guide the volunteers, said during the experiment: "Lots of different thatching and walling methods have been tested and new questions about how the Neolithic people lived are appearing every day."
The project will be completed in two stages: the first phase will be the visitor building which will open in December 2013. In January 2014 work will start on decommissioning the existing facilities and returning the car park to grass with a small operational hub tucked into the landscape. This work will be complete by the end of June 2014 although it will take some time after that for the newly seeded areas to establish fully.
To find out more about building the Neolithic houses (& to volunteer to join the building teams) go to www.english-heritage.org.uk/stonehengevolunteering
Neolithic Builders Required
The project will run over three phases and English Heritage will be looking for volunteer support at every stage:
Phase 1 – March to May 2013
Build prototype houses at Old Sarum near Salisbury, Wiltshire
Phase 2 – October to December 2013
Build three houses in the external gallery at the new Stonehenge visitor centre
Phase 3 – 2014 onwards
Provide live interpretation and demonstrations for visitors to explain the lifestyles and technology of Neolithic people.
Wiltshire Council approved the planning application submitted by English Heritage for the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre which involved closing the A344 and grassing over part of the old road surface. As part of their approval they applied for a TRO (Traffic Regulation Order) to prevent motorised vehicles using the A344 & Byways 11 & 12 which cross the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. It was decided to treat this as two separate applications :
1) a Stopping Up Order for the that section of the A344 from Byway 12 to Stonehenge Bottom.
2) a TRO for the section of the A344 from Airman's Corner to Byway 12 plus those parts of Byways 11 & 12 within the World Heritage Site.
The Stopping Up Order was approved by the Department of Transport on 1st November but the TRO was subject to a non-statutory public enquiry after which the Inspector recommended that the TRO should only apply to the A344 but that motorised traffic should still be allowed to drive across the World Heritage Site on the two Byways. This was largely as a result of representations made by (so called) druids and the 4-wheel drive off-roader brigade who turned up in force at the enquiry. Wiltshire Council had the option to ignore the Inspector and apply the TRO in full but have clearly chosen to follow his advice. The result is not very satisfactory as future visitors to Stonehenge, while walking down the grassed over remains of the A344 will have their visit rudely interrupted by motor bikes and 4-wheel drive vehicles crossing their path. In addition people will continue to park camper vans on the byways.
On a totally different topic, English Heritage has agreed to fund a revised Research Framework for the Stonehenge & Avebury World Heritage Sites. This decision is partly driven by the fact that as these two sites are nominated as a single World Heritage Site, they are required by UNESCO to have a single research agenda which is currently not the case. The objectives of this exercise are :-
Wednesday 8 May saw the last piece of steel welded into the structure that supports the canopy roof above the new visitor centre. The gently rolling roof aims to mirror the contours of Salisbury Plain and helps the building fit discreetly into the landscape. Beneath the roof are two 'pods', which are almost complete: a glass one which will house the café, shop and education space; and a sweet chestnut-clad pod, containing exhibition galleries, membership area and toilets.
Loraine Knowles, Stonehenge Director, said: "It is fantastic to see the building taking shape and to see how well it sits in the landscape. Progress with the creation of the interior spaces for the museum galleries, education area, shop and cafe is equally exciting because it is now possible to see on the ground how these great new facilities will be experienced by our visitors."
The A344. Central to the vision of returning Stonehenge to a more tranquil and dignified setting is the closure of the A344 road that runs past the monument, almost touching the Heel Stone and severing the Stone Circle from the Avenue, its ancient processional approach.
The section of the road running closest to the moment, from Stonehenge Bottom (junction of A344 and A303) and Byway 12, is scheduled to close from 24 June. Over the summer work will start to remove the high fences along the road and the road surface itself will be removed and grassed over.
There will be continued access to Stonehenge on and after 24 June but motorists will need to use a diverted route via Longbarrow Roundabout (junction of A303 and A360) and onwards via Airman’s Corner (junction of A360 and A344). Motorists travelling west on the A303 will see a sign in the vicinity of Stonehenge Bottom indicating that they should continue straight ahead for Stonehenge. There will also be signs at Longbarrow Roundabout.
Test Building Neolithic Houses. Around 60 volunteers have just completed a test build of three Neolithic Houses at Old Sarum near Salisbury. The lessons learned from this experiment will help build the final houses at Stonehenge in 2014, which will be the highlight of the outdoor gallery at the new visitor centre.
Luke Winter, manager of the Ancient Technology Centre who was appointed by English Heritage to lead the project and guide the volunteers, said during the experiment: "Lots of different thatching and walling methods have been tested and new questions about how the Neolithic people lived are appearing every day."
The project will be completed in two stages: the first phase will be the visitor building which will open in December 2013. In January 2014 work will start on decommissioning the existing facilities and returning the car park to grass with a small operational hub tucked into the landscape. This work will be complete by the end of June 2014 although it will take some time after that for the newly seeded areas to establish fully.
To find out more about building the Neolithic houses (& to volunteer to join the building teams) go to www.english-heritage.org.uk/stonehengevolunteering
Neolithic Builders Required
The project will run over three phases and English Heritage will be looking for volunteer support at every stage:
Phase 1 – March to May 2013
Build prototype houses at Old Sarum near Salisbury, Wiltshire
Phase 2 – October to December 2013
Build three houses in the external gallery at the new Stonehenge visitor centre
Phase 3 – 2014 onwards
Provide live interpretation and demonstrations for visitors to explain the lifestyles and technology of Neolithic people.
Wiltshire Council approved the planning application submitted by English Heritage for the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre which involved closing the A344 and grassing over part of the old road surface. As part of their approval they applied for a TRO (Traffic Regulation Order) to prevent motorised vehicles using the A344 & Byways 11 & 12 which cross the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. It was decided to treat this as two separate applications :
1) a Stopping Up Order for the that section of the A344 from Byway 12 to Stonehenge Bottom.
2) a TRO for the section of the A344 from Airman's Corner to Byway 12 plus those parts of Byways 11 & 12 within the World Heritage Site.
The Stopping Up Order was approved by the Department of Transport on 1st November but the TRO was subject to a non-statutory public enquiry after which the Inspector recommended that the TRO should only apply to the A344 but that motorised traffic should still be allowed to drive across the World Heritage Site on the two Byways. This was largely as a result of representations made by (so called) druids and the 4-wheel drive off-roader brigade who turned up in force at the enquiry. Wiltshire Council had the option to ignore the Inspector and apply the TRO in full but have clearly chosen to follow his advice. The result is not very satisfactory as future visitors to Stonehenge, while walking down the grassed over remains of the A344 will have their visit rudely interrupted by motor bikes and 4-wheel drive vehicles crossing their path. In addition people will continue to park camper vans on the byways.
On a totally different topic, English Heritage has agreed to fund a revised Research Framework for the Stonehenge & Avebury World Heritage Sites. This decision is partly driven by the fact that as these two sites are nominated as a single World Heritage Site, they are required by UNESCO to have a single research agenda which is currently not the case. The objectives of this exercise are :-
- To produce a resource assessment of the current state of knowledge on the historic environment of Avebury.
- To produce a review of recent research on the historic environment of Stonehenge.
- Building on both research agendas for the WHS, to produce one joint research agenda for the entire WHS. It is anticipated that this will contain both overarching and site specific research objectives.
- To produce a single strategy for the WHS based on prioritised objectives taken from the research agenda. Initially this should span a five year planning period.
- To develop a method of monitoring progress of the five year strategy in order that the strategy remains current and in order that it can be reshaped after the initial five year planning period.
