EF Academy Torbay trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury

Students from Torbay visited the ancient and mysterious Stonehenge at the weekend and had the privilege of a special educational tour around the new visitor’s center. The trip was by far the most popular we have run this year. So popular that we are going to run a second visit.
It was an incredibly cold day especially on the high ground of Stonehenge but it was very sunny so it was a great day to visit. Stonehenge is an amazing site but I think that it wasn’t until we got there that we realized what a strange place it is. Its so shrouded in mystery and there is so much speculation about its use and origin that you cant help but wonder what the world was like when it was constructed.
We also found out that the area around it is full of similar monuments and that it was one huge area and we loved the thought that this was built during a period of history that we know almost nothing about.
Archaeologists believe it was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.
The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in 1986 and it is a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument. Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another five hundred years.
Because so little is known myth has grown up around it most interestingly the myth around King Arthur. In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth included a fanciful story in his Historia Regum Britanniae that attributed the monument’s construction to Merlin. Geoffrey’s story spread widely, appearing in more and less elaborate form in adaptations of his work such as Wace’s Norman French Roman de Brut, Layamon’s Middle English Brut, and the Welsh Brut y Brenhinedd.
According to Geoffrey the rocks of Stonehenge were healing rocks, called the Giant’s dance, which Giants had brought from Africa to Ireland for their healing properties. The fifth-century king Aurelius Ambrosius wished to erect a memorial to 3,000 nobles slain in battle against the Saxons and buried at Salisbury, and at Merlin’s advice chose Stonehenge. The king sent Merlin, Uther Pendragon (Arthur’s father), and 15,000 knights, to remove it from Ireland, where it had been constructed on Mount Killaraus by the Giants. They slew 7,000 Irish but, as the knights tried to move the rocks with ropes and force, they failed. Then Merlin, using “gear” and skill, easily dismantled the stones and sent them over to Britain, where Stonehenge was dedicated. After it had been rebuilt near Amesbury, Geoffrey further narrates how first Ambrosius Aurelianus, then Uther Pendragon, and finally Constantine III, were buried inside the “Giants’ Ring of Stonehenge”.
The place has a very strange feel to it and it feels like a real link to some mysterious time and we were thrilled to have visited the place. After that we jumped forward in time to Salisbury which is one of England’s finest Medieval cities with one of the largest cathedrals in England. This is a beautiful city and if it wasn’t for the modern shops you could be in the 16th century. The cathedral which is huge is also absolutely stunning and visible from every point of the city.
Fantastic day full of facts, mystery and shopping but with a cold wind!