Digging at Stonehenge: no one came!

On one of the final days of digging on National Trust land, where researchers from the University of Birmingham and Ghent University were investigating large prehistoric pits, one of the questions the excavators were asked was how many members of the general public had visited the dig in all the time they were there? The answer given was none.

Yet in their frenzied attempt to remove tarmac from the charity’s land no matter the damage done either side by the tunnel portals and cuttings, the National Trust has spouted about the supposed benefits of opening up the World Heritage Site landscape to the public. Just imagine then – £billions spent on a tunnel and a deep wide cutting routed through a Beaker cemetery – and there is no significant increase in the numbers accessing the surrounds owned by the National Trust. What will the National Trust do then – open their own visitor centre to attract visitors?

Watching paying visitors empty out of English Heritage tourist buses day after day… let the National Trust deny internal discussions haven’t already taken place about the possibility of opening the charity’s own Stonehenge visitor centre!