The Stonehenge Landscape is a property of The National Trust, located on

Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies within the county of Wiltshire, but st ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, England. The estate (formerly known as Stonehenge Historic Landscape and before that as Stonehenge Down) covers surrounding the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

monument of

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric Megalith, megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, to ...

, which is administered by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

. Much of the land is designated open access by the Trust, including the fields immediately around Stonehenge and other fields that become available as part of the chalk grassland reversion project (see below). Stonehenge itself is in the care of English Heritage, having been given to the nation in 1918 by Cecil and Mary Chubb, who had bought it three years previously from the Antrobus family. Much of the land surrounding the stones was acquired in 1927 after a public appeal was launched to prevent further development on the fields around the monument. The successfully purchased land was given to the National Trust for the benefit of the nation. Shortly afterwards such structures as cottages and the

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

-era Stonehenge Aerodrome were removed from the immediate vicinity of the stones. There are two memorials to different fatal flying accidents in the area. Eustace Loraine and Staff Sergeant Wilson were killed in 1912 near the new Stonehenge Visitors' centre. Major Hewetson was killed in a flying accident near Fargo Wood in July 1913. Later the Trust acquired more land, principally after the purchase of an adjacent farm in the early 21st century. The land owned by the Trust comprises almost one third of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, and contains nearly 400 ancient monuments (most of them scheduled). These monuments include the enormous earthwork known as the

Stonehenge Cursus The Stonehenge Cursus (sometimes known as the Greater Cursus) is a large Neolithic cursus monument on Salisbury plain, near to Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. It is roughly long and between and wide. Excavations in 2007 dated the construct ...

, the Avenue, Woodhenge and Durrington Walls, as well as numerous burial mounds known as barrows. The estate also includes some of the Nile Clumps, large clumps of trees on arable farmland, said to represent ship positions at the Battle of the Nile. This is said to form a large memorial to

Horatio Nelson Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte ( – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer whose leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French ...

, created by a local landowner after Nelson's death. During the 1970s and 1980s, the estate was the scene of the Stonehenge Free Festival. Damage to monuments such as the Cursus barrows was one of the reasons that the festival was banned in 1985. As part of the World Heritage Site Management Plan for Stonehenge, some 340 hectares of the land will revert to chalk grassland by 2011. The scheme (one of the largest reversion schemes of its kind in Europe) will turn over much of the estate to permanent pasture, and allow for increased open access around the area. At present some 112 hectares have reverted and, along with the existing grassland, are used as public open access as well as animal grazing.

References

External links

National Trust: Stonehenge Landscape

Map showing National Trust land
– search for Stonehenge {{Stonehenge Stone Age sites in Wiltshire Bronze Age sites in Wiltshire National Trust properties in Wiltshire Buildings and structures in Wiltshire Archaeological sites in Wiltshire

Landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

Barrows in England Protected areas of Wiltshire

See also

References

External links