ITP 2021: Our trip to Stonehenge!
Written by George Peckham, ITP Assistant
An ITP Annual Programme tradition is a group trip to Stonehenge! This year’s trip was especially relevant, as the current special exhibition at the British Museum is The world of Stonehenge, which offers new insight into one of the great wonders of the world.
Stonehenge is a unique prehistoric monument and is one of world’s most famous ancient landmarks. Standing in the Wiltshire countryside, the site of Stonehenge lies at the centre of a rich archaeological landscape. Stonehenge has helped archaeologists understand the lives of Neolithic and Bronze Age communities living in Britain and Europe thousands of years ago. As the most architecturally sophisticated prehistoric stone circle in the world, many different theories have been put forward about who built, how they built it, and why.
We were up bright and early for our trip to Stonehenge. We’ve been very lucky so far with the weather during the Programme. This day was no different, it was clear and sunny, but a little bit windy! Our coach collected us at 7am and we started our journey to Stonehenge. We arrived at the visitor centre by about 10am and started making the walk towards the stones. Along the way you can see the other features of Stonehenge’s landscapes such as the large burial mounds known as barrows.
One thing I always observe when I have seen Stonehenge is that it looks smaller in real life than I expected! Nonetheless it still towers above everything else in the immediate landscape. It was beautiful blues skies as we walked around Stonehenge. It’s very peaceful around the stones as we made our way around. Of course there were many stops on the way to take lots of photos!
Back at the visitor centre there’s a chance to see the Stonehenge exhibition, which presents archaeological treasures found around Stonehenge. There are replica Neolithic houses which allow you to imagine what it was like to live 4,500 years ago.
Back the British Museum the ITP 2021 will have the chance to see The world of Stonehenge exhibition after seeing the real thing!