Salisbury and Stonehenge, 2006

When you visit Stonehenge more than ten times, you get to call it The 'Henge. I am long past this point. I first visited this site on the Salisbury plain in as a tourist in 1995, then returned in 1997 and 1998 to take still more American students to admire the rocks.

Actually I found that most student visitors were unimpressed, and after a while I tired of this most popular student trip myself. But while Andrea's cousin Johnnie Johnson was visiting this past weekend we decided to go to Salisbury and take a bus up to The 'Henge. And we had a great time. It was actually the best trip to the site that I've ever taken, in part because the weather was fantastic. In the mild sinlight the stones were extremely photogenic.

The Salisbury Plain: 5,000 years ago this rolling field was a large forest broken by small, grassy clearings.

Birds on a fence at the Salisbury Plain. They are watching the tourists crowded around the entrance to the site.

The crowds swarm around The 'Henge. It was a rather busy day, probably busier than I have ever seen it.

The inner stones of The 'Henge. Stonehenge was built with large stone from the Marlborough Downs, 20 miles away. The smaller stones visible in the middle are bluestones from the Preseli Hills in Wales, a lovely part of the country where I have spent some time, but a long way to travel to find rocks.

Proof that I was there (but probably not the first photo of me with these rocks in the background).

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The crowds along the outer boundry of Stonehenge, with the Salisbury Plain behind them.

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The locals. They have unlimited access to the stones, but do not take much interest.

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The Heel Stone, a rock outside the circle that is not carved like the others, is one of the features of Stonegenge that has led people to suggest the entire setup is a calendar. During the summer solstice if you stand in the center of the circle you can watch the sun rise directly over the tip of this stone.

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Johnnie and Andrea at the Salisbury Plain.

And Andrea and I in the same pose.

Johnnie surveys the plain surrounding the stones.

One thing that you don't get to do on organized trips is wander off and take you time doing things that are not on the itinerary. I've only ever walked to the stones at Stonehenge, but there are plenty of paths through the fields around the stones that are worth ambling along. This path leads out to burial mounds north of the stones. The people who built The 'Henge also built a lot of mounds, an avenue and a long fortification.

Stonehenge is not too far from Salisbury, a nice town in Wiltshire.

The town gate.

Salisbury's claim to fame is that it has the tallest cathedral spire in England.

It is not only a cathedral with a tall spire, but also one of the few cathedrals of its age that was built in a single architectural style. It was built in the thirteenth century when the Norman town of Sarum, north of Salisbury, was abandoned and the bishopric moved to Salisbury. The new cathedral was built in only 38 years, so it is entirely Old English Gothic. The spire was added in the fourteenth century.

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The inside of the cathedral. Lofty, but not the most impressive cathedral.

The cathedral has a working medieval clock that is widely regarded as the oldest clock in the world.

On a tour we were able to see the cathedral from a higher vantage point. In the distance, if you look closely, the area around the spire is slightly warped. The line of the cathedral stone bends downward, and the columns bend inward. This is because the spire added so much weight to the structure that it warped the building.

Over the vaults in the cathedral. The vaults, right down to the tops of the columns, are filled with stone. Some of these wooden beams are medieval.

To keep the tower under the spire in place the builders constructed special iron braces. This is probably the oldest ironwork I've ever seen.

A closer view of the medieval ironwork. Instead of using bolts to connect the metal beams the medieval smiths used iron wedges.

The view over the town from the cathedral spire. The

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The cloister to the right, and to the left, the Chapter House. The Chapter House is home to one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta, signed in a field near my company's office in 1215 (the others are in the British Library and at Lincoln Cathedral).

And the view up the cathedral spire. The inside of the spire, which is made of stone, is filled with a mesh of wooden scaffolding. It is possible to climb all the way to the tip of the spire, but parts of the climb have to be taken on the outside. The copper metal visible here is a lightning rod.