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Saturday 18 October 2014

Moanhenge 2: Goodbye Tarmac, Hello Obama

I was reviewing the Sunday papers a few weeks ago in a local radio station (I know, wacky eh?) where I had a creeping sense of dread that there wouldn't actually be anything in the news that I was even remotely qualified to talk about (it all being relentlessly depressing). This was a big concern, having been given two requests by the show's producer namely 'find something historical / heritage related' and 'keep it light'. Luckily I needn't have worried for there is one archeo-staple that you can be sure will always be in the papers, especially on a Sunday:

Stonehenge

This time it wasn't the road closures / land-train / entrance price / druids / display of human remains / startling new interpretation etc etc, but the very simple story concerning the surprise visit by the US president to a set of sarsen boulders 'somewhere' in the Wiltshire landscape.


Apparently it had been on his 'bucket list' for some time and, if the photos are any judge, it looked like he had a good time.


My only worry is that he didn't get the complete Stonehenge experience. No gift shop, no land-train, no chance to see or walk within the wider landscape, no chance to eat cake.
 
The visitor experience at Europe's most iconic archaeological site is, of course, currently undergoing significant modification. The road that ran so perilously close to the monument, allowing trucks, coaches and cars to thunder across the line of the Avenue, severing Stonehenge from its immediate environs, has gone, whilst the car park, ticket office and concrete bunker-style gift-shop and adjoining café, are all being demolished, and that's all good...
 
...isn't it?
 
Well yes, of course, removing some of the more intrusive 20th and 21st century buildings and returning a more 'natural' feel to this much neglected site is, and will continue to be, hugely beneficial, drastically improving both the environment and the overall visitor experience (although whether it really does reduce numbers at the stones is a matter for debate), opening up the surrounding landscape and permitting better access to the Avenue, Cursus and surrounding barrow groups.
 
But (there's always a ‘but’) I must admit a degree of sadness at the loss of certain parts of the 'old' Stonehenge property. Certainly the new visitor centre should be applauded, especially given that, throughout the 20th century, there was no on-site museum, interpretation or display. OK so I remain to be convinced about the exterior of said new-build, which looks a bit like an unfinished motorway service station
 
 
but the interior is uniformly excellent. Larger shop (always good) indoor café (even better) and best of all a set of displays, artefact show-cases and interactive thingamys explaining the who, what, why and wherefore of Stonehenge. Here you can at last learn about the monument and about the Neolithic and Bronze Age and all the many periods of antiquarian and later investigation conducted, and I particularly enjoyed seeing some of the many interpretations of the stone structure being discussed by leading experts who used words like 'Wiltshire', 'Tradition' and 'Wales'
 
 
or who spent time explaining why they like wearing clothes with maps of Europe and Africa printed on them
 
 
All in all then, the experience for visitors has improved considerably, although poor Mr Obama obviously did not have time to fully appreciate this, being cajoled by his bodyguard to return to his helicopter and the defence of the free-world as soon as politely possible.
 
But (there we go again), I still can't help but feel nostalgia for what has gone. Having spent so much time in the old tarmac covered car park, complete with its incongruous circular white-blobs, painted to show where Mesolithic timber posts once stood (and which always confused unwary motorists), buying 'Stonehenge rock cakes' and (the rather unappealingly named) 'Aubrey-hole doughnuts' (and eating them sat on a windswept bench watching parties of German, French and Japanese tourists flock past) as well as spending time (and not an inconsiderable amount of money) in the old-bunker shop (buying stick-on druid beards and snow-globes) and deep-set underground toilet facilities, I do feel rather sad that these are things that have now, together with the road, houses, petrol station, airfield etc, all been consigned to archaeological history. Is that just me......?
 
....it is just me isn't it.

5 comments:

  1. The "sensible" part of me likes the new, gently 21st century visitor's centre, the calmer landscape, and the lack of opportunity for the slightly less archaeologically learned visitor to ask "why did they build it so close to the road?"

    However, the less sensible, cultural magpie part of me, thinks there was some kind of joy in emerging from the underpass into the old grey car park, back into the real world after a day of exploring Stonehenge. The old visitor's centre was as much an important act of vandalism as the Roman graffiti! Maybe it's nostalgia talking, I haven't yet had chance to "bond" with the new layout as I did with the old one.

    I'm sure in a few hundred years when visits are solely by cold fusion powered airship and the interpretation is provided by genetically recreated Neolithic people wandering around trying to figure out how a cursus works, they'll think our current set up is pretty naff, too.

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    1. Hi Penelope. Good to know it's not just me after all. The more I think about the old site, and the loss of the 'time tunnel' linking the car park to the stones in particular, the more sad I feel that it's inherent 'cheesy-ness' has gone, never to be appreciated by visitors again. I'm sure everyone (well most people) will bond with the new centre in some way, and I do like the reconstructed / recreated huts, but then I like the idea of cold fusion powered airships and genetically recreated Neolithic farmers more....roll on the next two centuries!

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    2. The time tunnel? Have I been missing something? Next you'll be saying there was a space cupboard!

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    3. There is a space cupboard. It's next to the wormhole wardrobe.

      DG

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    4. Thank you DG...quite! Not really too sure about the worm hole wardrobe (or any other form of time-travelling furniture), although that could explain where all the socks go, but the Time Tunnel certainly did exist and will be sorely missed. in fact that may form the basis of my next blog entry (or my previous, depending on whether or not it still works).

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