This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
The building is designed to


have minimum impact on the landscape (above); new exhibits (bottom left); reconstruction of a Neolithic man (bottom right)


forward since 1986 which didn’t proceed. When the Airman’s Corner scheme got planning permission we still had to apply for a Stopping Up order for the road, which went to a public inquiry. We still have the A303 running very


close to the site, but that’s had a whisper surface applied to it and it’s now notice- ably quieter, which is an improvement.


How has the project been funded? The £27m ($45m, €33m) Stonehenge Environmental Improvements Programme is the largest capital project ever under- taken by English Heritage. It has been financed almost entirely by Heritage


Lottery Fund money (£10m – $16m, €12m), English Heritage commercial income and philanthropic donations, including significant gifts from the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Linbury Trust and the Wolfson Foundation.


AM 1 2014 ©cybertrek 2014


What does the centre replace? The visitor facilities at the Stone Circle dated back to 1968 and were totally inadequate for what’s expected of a visitor attraction today. They consisted of a basic concrete building housing a shop and catering unit, and various Portakabins for staff facilities and toilets. Although all these were down in a dip,


if you approached the site from the north or west they jarred against the landscape. As we did an overnight switch to the


new centre in December 2013, these facilities had to remain in place, but over the next six months they’ll be dismantled. By summer, Stonehenge will once again be standing alone in its natural grassland.


What can visitors expect? We’ve conceived the building as literally a stopping off point on the way to the Stones, which now lie 2km away. It’s all


about getting people to the Stones and vastly improving their understanding and experience of them and the landscape, which contains an extraordinary number of prehistoric monuments . We now have an interpretative exhibi- tion about Stonehenge that people can either visit before or after they see the Stone Circle, or both. We’ll also be dis- playing Stonehenge artefacts, such as some of the tools used to build the mon- ument – on loan from nearby museums – at the site for the first time. People visit Stonehenge with some


basic questions: who built the Stones, why did they build them and how did they build them? We’re setting out the latest knowledge


in response to those questions. We don’t have all the answers but there’s ongo- ing research about Stonehenge and we engaged a number of leading academics


Read Attractions Management online attractionsmanagement.com/digital 49


PHOTOS TOP: JAMES O. DAVIES/ENGLISH HERITAGE. LOWER: CLARE KENDALL/ENGLISH HERITAGE


PHOTO: JAMES O. DAVIES/ENGLISH HERITAGE


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