There are three main options available to you; using a guided tour with bus straight from London, travelling independently using public transport train from Waterloo and Stonehenge Tour Bus from Salisbury or hiring or taking your own car and driving yourself to Stonehenge from London. There is one entry ticket to Stonehenge that covers the visitor centre, shuttle and access to Stonehenge. English Heritage strongly advise you to book your tickets in advance as Stonehenge is a very popular attraction with over a million visitors every year.
Tickets are timed, to thirty minute time slots - this is the time in which you report to the ticket desk at the entrance to Stonehenge. Once you book your timed ticket online, you print out your confirmation and bring it with you.
If you have a heritage pass or are a National Trust or English Heritage member and are entitled to free entry you still need to obtain free tickets in advance. It is advisable to allow at least two hours to enjoy Stonehenge properly, especially given the large amounts of information available to you at the visitor centre, built , and allowing any extra time to browse the gift shop. You could stay much longer, for example if you wished to include walking the surrounding landscape, as well as your time at the stones.
If you have a special interest you could spend all day here. Once you have shown your booking confirmation in your thirty minute time slot, you are then free to board the shuttle bus at any time from a boarding point outside the exhibition. On return, you simply get the next available bus back again. The road that the shuttles take to Stonehenge which they have sole use of you can walk along, and there are walking trails all over the landscape. If you want to walk around the monuments on the Stonehenge landscape best point to start is actually Stonehenge itself.
Note: The landscape surrounding Stonehenge is free to walk, without gaining access to Stonehenge itself. The land belongs to National Trust and there is much archaeology and wildlife to be seen. The Stonehenge Visitor Centre is located about a mile away from the stones themselves. This is also where the car and coach parks are located. The car park is free for people purchasing tickets to enter Stonehenge, there is a charge if you are not.
A shuttle bus included in your ticket price will take you down to see the stones, if you prefer not to walk. They run very frequently so if you turn up you will never have to wait more than a few minutes. The visitor centre hosts the Stonehenge exhibition, cafe, gift shop and toilets. If you are arriving independently, this where you pick up your tickets and audio guides.
If you are arriving as part of a tour you will form a queue to go through round the side of the building and from there will join the shuttle bus to take you to the stones. If you wish to see the exhibition you can leave yourself some time at the end to come back and see it. The Stonehenge Exhibition contains over archaeological treasures, which were used or buried at Stonehenge, including pottery, tools, jewellery, and even human remains.
The exhibition gives a good grounding into understanding into the various theories of how it was thought Stonehenge was built and why, along with insights into the people who used Stonehenge. Outside there are reconstructions of Neolithic houses and demonstrations of how the stones were transported. The gift shop offers an extensive range of books, gifts and souvenirs, many made in the UK exclusively for Stonehenge.
Regardless, plenty of people use this route to get to Stonehenge:. Compared to the Woodhenge path, this route is much easier to complete in low light and poor weather conditions. However, if you take a day trip to Stonehenge during the week in low season, you could get to park for free. But in my experience and according to the English Heritage website , parking attendants are only there during peak times. If you use this method to visit Stonehenge for free, you can just walk up the side of the road until you reach the shuttle bus drop-off area.
Then, simply pass through the public access gate to reach the stones. However, if you live in the UK and like to visit historical sites, I think the cost is well worth it. There are places run by the National Trust and Historic Scotland that give free admission to English Heritage members as well. You might have heard that the stones at Stonehenge were arranged in such a way to commemorate the shortest and longest days of the year.
When the sun rises behind the Heel Stone on the summer solstice, its rays shine directly into the center of Stonehenge. Every June, thousands of people gather at Stonehenge the evening before the solstice to celebrate this special event. This experience belongs at the top of any UK bucket list!
You can check out the exhibition center, a mini-museum about Stonehenge. It even has a degree theater that plays a time-lapse view of the site throughout time and seasons.
I enjoyed learning about the history of Stonehenge and seeing the relics and artifacts found during excavation. Paying customers can also ride the visitor shuttle either part-way or the whole way to and from Stonehenge. If the weather is unusually cold or rainy, this will make your visit far more pleasant. Grab your skip the line ticket to save time!
I think filling your itinerary with tourist attractions is one of the worst international travel mistakes.
The very creation of Stonehenge is fascinating, from the way the ancient society figured out how to arrange the stones, to how they managed to stack them. Having learned about Stonehenge from a young age, it was an amazing experience to see this wonder first-hand. Most of the meadows came to dead ends of electric fences. But, my detour led me to lots of cute sheep and unfortunately their poop. When you get to the bottom of the gravel path, you will come to the area where the tourists are dropped off by the shuttle buses to see Stonehenge.
One of the best known pre-historic monuments in Europe. How did they get here? Why was it built? Your mind will be racing. What I loved about seeing Stonehenge this way was that I got to have it pretty much all to myself. The first ticket entry is at 9. I wanted to see it early morning and in peace and this way allowed me to do that.
It was a magical feeling. On June 20th of each year, you can enter the site for free and climb amongst the stones in celebration! Everybody waits in amongst the stones for the sun to rise to mark the earliest sunrise and latest sunset. You will hear drums going all night, dancing, partying and all sorts and everyone cheers when the sun goes up. Each year for solstice, visitors walk amongst the stones waiting for the sun to come up. For more information you can see my post all about it here.
So, there you have it, an easy step by step completely legal guide of how to visit Stonehenge for free. Save your cash and do it this way instead. Plus, you can go for sunrise and have it all to yourself, bonus. I hope you enjoy feeling the energies of Stonehenge, let it bedazzle you without hurting your wallet! Discover this secret bluebell woods of Swindon! How to visit Imber, the abandoned ghost village in Wiltshire. Things to do in Corsham. Things to do in Uffington White Horse.
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