stonehenge : our sunrise Stone Circle Access experience
As we mapped out our English road trip, we realized that we would be practically driving right by Stonehenge. Trent and I instantly knew that we wanted to visit the site. Who doesn’t remember hearing about it as a kid? But there was one thing holding us back. Everyone who told us about their visit talked about how disappointed they were when they got to Stonehenge and realized that they couldn’t get up close to the rocks. With the General Admission, you can only get about 30 feet from the structure.
We debated visiting, until Trent came across something called Stone Circle Access. Now, I’m the researcher for all things travel. Trent honestly hasn’t planned any aspect of our trips. He’s more of the history and language teacher for the family. But if he only plans one thing for us to do during this entire year than this was a great one!
Stone Circle Access allow up to 30 people permission to walk amongst the rocks for an hour. To get tickets, you must request them online, lottery style, and wait to see if you were granted them. We submitted our request about 6-7 months before we visited Stonehenge. The Stone Circle Access ticket is only available for sunrise or past sunset, outside of normal operating hours. I believe that exact times vary throughout the year. The experience is not cheap, but highly worth it for us. (£47 adults /£28.20 for children (5-17) / under 5 years of age are free)
Before I share about our experience, I have to tell you a story about our craziest travel mishap so far!
As soon as we knew we were granted tickets, we did the math as to what time we needed to wake up in London, drive to Stonehenge and make it there by 5 AM. We reassured ourselves that if we had to drive, one the left side of the road, in a very busy city, it was best to do it at 2:15 AM. Right?!
We had a million alarms for our 2 AM wake up and prepped everything the night before. That morning we were on track, car loaded and about to put the sleeping kids in the car when Trent said that he couldn’t find the apartment keys. It was now 2:15 and we needed to get on the road. He looked, then I looked. With our phone flashlights we checked the gutters, flowerbeds, in the car, in the apartment. We tore our suitcases apart. I had such a pit in my stomach and thought about any possible way that we could still leave and somehow replace the keys for our host. Unfortunately, this is the only apartment on our trip that we really didn’t care for and had some heated message with our host. I REALLY didn’t want to have to deal with him any more than necessary.
After 20 minutes of searching, I found them! In a grocery bag filled with snacks. We put the kids in the car and drove. Praying we would wouldn’t make one wrong turn and actually make it on time. And then guess what, the streets of London at 2:30 AM are still full of cars! Our dreams of a easier drive out of the city definitely were not coming true.
We arrived to Stonehenge with 12 minutes to spare. The bus was there waiting to take the group from the visitor center to the site, while we parked the car. But the story doesn’t end there.
In the minute it took to get the kids out of the car, we lost the car keys. What? How?! By the time we found the keys, the bus was gone. I seriously couldn’t believe it.
Luckily, the bus driver returned to pick us up about 10 minutes later and we joined the group for the remainder of the hour that would end up being pretty amazing!
In our group of 30, the other 26 people were made up of an extended family and their guide. Being the only ones not in their group, the security guards working that morning became our own, impromptu guides. They were each so passionate about the history of Stonehenge. A must, I think, if you spend hours throughout the middle the night guarding the site.
They offered to take our photo and told us stories about the site’s history.
They even showed us the “face” in the rocks above and told us to edit the photo in black and white to make it easier to see. We had so much fun learning from them.
I also learned the lesson that a little research goes a long way to get the kids, and us, interested in a visit. The night before, after a little google dive, I learned about the “notch and peg” system used to stack the rocks. In the top, right photo above you can see the “peg” at the top of the large column rock. That “peg” fits into the notches that are carved into the top pieces. Our LEGO building kid, T, loved looking for the “notches and pegs” and kept him interested for the entire hour.
We loved our quiet morning amongst the circle. The endless, rolling hills of the English countryside was beautiful and we kept saying “I can’t believe that we’re here”. I could picture my high school history textbook image of Stonehenge and couldn’t get over the fact that I was standing among it with my husband and two little ones.
