Stonehenge to Be Protected

One road in particular, which runs right through the circles of giant stones, will be closed. A large section of another nearby road will be buried in a tunnel.

Parking sites, which now are quite close to the stones, will be moved farther away, as will a visitors site.

The whole idea is to give Stonehenge a sense of peace and quiet, both for the people who visit and for the stones themselves. More than 800,000 people visit Stonehenge every year, and the danger of damage is quite high, even for very large stones.

The stones themselves are a collection of varying heights and weights. Some are 30 feet tall; some weigh 50 tons. Others, of course, are smaller and not so heavy.

To this day, no one knows for sure what the circles of stones were used for, or how the giant stones got where they are now. (Historians know, for example, that the stones are not native to the area and must have come from many miles away.)

All of this means that it will be harder to get to Stonehenge in the first place. (You'll have to walk quite a bit.) This will probably mean a drop in the number of people who visit the ancient site, but that will probably increase the stability of the area.

Graphics courtesy of ArtToday