Phil wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 21:18
marconaf wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 21:01
That’s exactly why the road should pass within visual range of the stones.
They weren’t built as a isolated thing in the landscape, but connected directly into everything that went on around and past them.
Our ancestors didn't have motor vehicles! The builders of Stonehenge didn't even have the horse and cart setup from the medieval era! When they needed to get places the WALKED ON FOOT!
People are a part of Stonehenge ever since it was built - transport by anything other than your feet isn't!
So while its true they would have needed a form of 'road' to get them to the Stones, that would have basically taken the form of an nonintrusive footpath / bridleway across the landscape. Very different from the noisy and busy A303...
But people do travel in vehicles, and always will.
We don’t just walk around a very small local area anymore.
Those are objective facts.
So Stonehenge has to be seen in the light that it was built to be seen by the people around and passing. There is ample evidence that there were roads or at least routes, there before it was. Indeed that’s how it got there and those routes were intrinsic to the communities around.
Having walked and cycled the area, the minor roads are clearly very old and represent the classic “point to point” network we had before vehicles allowed us to be less efficient by travelling further to get from A to B but then focus our resources on making those routes faster at the expense of less directness.
So Stonehenge was built on and around various routes, and those routes have evolved to give us the A303, doing local, medium and long distance travel just as has passed down that axis for 1000s of years.
So for the entirety of Stonehenge’s life it has been passed by passers-by, as was surely part of its purpose.
Now we’re going to remove that in the name of turning back the clock to a mythical view when it sat there all on its tod and the only ones who will see it are the modern equivalent of the annointed few.
That isn’t progress, it’s a retrograde step, and I think it does Stonehenge a disservice.
I get that a D2 with HGVs at 60mph, 100m away is something of an escalation from a handful of wagons a day and a dozen wanderers, but this “get rid of the road” drive seems wrong and indeed, counter-productive to me. Retaining a S2 option to allow people to pass the stones within visual range will likely increase those that stop. Which is a point, I wonder how much passing traffic the centre and stones will lose?
I feel the “empty the landscape” drive is perverse, it is not what Stonehenge was built in or for or what has been happening around in for its entire existence.
When the cost of doing this wrong is considered, and the benefit that money could bring elsewhere - then I’d be happy if this gets cancelled.
And as apparantly its only about Londoners getting to their holiday homes 3 minutes quicker (really !?! how daft), they can continue to appreciate the stones both to and from their getaway just as I do when I pass. At least the queuing gives one plenty of time!
Plus finally, if the NT etc are so interested in the WHS, why is virtually nothing done to highlight it or even see it. Try walking “the avenue” from the stones, just 2-3 fences, 1 of which is electric! As for the Kings down, out of sight, covered in modern growth, and the cursus, one small info board. They literally do nothing for the wider area other than try to empty it.
How about putting a walking or cycling route from Amesbury in? no, all the resources are on the gift shop, again, the summit of their ambition.