Stonehenge – Up Close and Personal

This week I am particularly excited about our lecture topic because I visited the historic Stonehenge site in late March of last year. It was spring break of my senior year of high school, and my high school choir program took a ten-day trip to London and the surrounding areas of England to visit cathedrals, historic places, experience english music history. While Stonehenge was just one site on our long list of places and things we got to do on the trip, it was a very influential and powerful experience for me.

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This, however, was not a normal tourist visit to the historic site. As it was mentioned in class today, usual people visiting Stonehenge are not allowed inside the circle of stones, but are restricted to a path leading around the site. My tour group was granted a special, inner circle tour, rarely given to groups coming to see Stonehenge. We had to arrive at the site very early, before the tourist center actually opened. We watched the sky slowly begin to lighten as we made the hour and a half drive from London through the rolling hills of farm fields in Salisbury. Arriving at 7 am, the sun was just starting rise as a tour guide led us out from the visitor center, past fields of sheep, and into the center of the circle. We had free access to the entire area. We were not allowed to touch the stones, to keep them from being damaged, but we could walk freely around them, see them from every angle, and really experience the huge size of the stone blocks.

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Being inside the rings of Stonehenge was a truly powerful experience. Seeing the sun rise through the spaces in the stones was beautiful and magical. You could almost feel the countless footsteps that had been walked there, the presence of ancient people who had used the space for a specific purpose, and the thousands of years of history that surrounded you. There was an almost unsettled feeling in the air, as if we were disturbing a sacred, ancient spirit of some kind that was trapped the stones. When we first arrived, everyone was very quiet, afraid to make too much noise that seemed out-of-place in the peaceful, cool morning air. Being a group of choir students, however, we later decided to test how the stones reflected sound and sang a song within the circle. The sound had an eerie echo to it, which made me think about what it would have been like for people to use the space when it was first erected with every stone in tact. We spent over an hour exploring every space between the stones, walking around the outer circle, and taking as many pictures as we could.

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This visit to Stonehenge was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The English Heritage group rarely allows visitors to get an up close tour of the stones, and the experience has made a lasting impact on me. The size, and presence of the stone circles when you are right next to them is almost impossible to describe. I hope to someday go back to Stonehenge, even if I won’t be able to go inside the circle again. This site will always be a magical and intriguing place for me.

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These images are all my personal pictures taken on the trip.