{"id":1045,"date":"2010-07-13T15:20:12","date_gmt":"2010-07-13T14:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=1045"},"modified":"2011-01-27T21:50:57","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T20:50:57","slug":"stonehenge-a-national-disgrace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=1045","title":{"rendered":"Stonehenge – a national disgrace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stonehenge was given to the nation in 1918.\u00a0 So far, almost a century later, the nation has done a remarkably bad job at looking after it.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The situation at the site is currently, as its custodians English Heritage put it, \u2018severely compromised\u2019 and as others like leading archaeologist Mike Pitts would say, \u2018 an embarrassing, abominable, inexcusable mess\u2019. For decades, plans have been put forward to improve the site and then postponed.<\/p>\n

Two main roads not only thunder past but divide the circle of stones from the Avenue that should lead to it.\u00a0 The findings from Stonehenge are scattered piecemeal between some sixteen different museums and private holdings around the country.\u00a0 For the almost one million annual visitors drawn there, it can be a dispiriting experience, with the stones themselves fenced off and the current \u2018visitor centre\u2019 resembling a British Rail station built in the 1970s.\u00a0 Overall, it can be a bit like having a picnic in a car park.<\/p>\n

Just last week the Government announced that it would no longer help finance the proposed new landscaping and visitor centre which Labour had announced last October.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the face of it, this might seem perfectly reasonable.\u00a0 A saving of \u00a310 million would result.\u00a0 We all know that cuts have to be made;\u00a0 the Government claims that Labour committed to projects that were never affordable.<\/p>\n

What no one has pointed out is that they have left in place a whole raft of other projects that Labour committed to at the same time:\u00a0 \u00a350 million towards the extension of Tate Modern, \u00a322.5 million towards the creation of the British Museum\u2019s World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre, and \u00a333 million to secure the future of the British Library\u2019s newspaper archive in new premises in Yorkshire. \u202a<\/p>\n

While all these projects may be worthwhile, they are certainly more expensive and show a strange sense of priorities.\u00a0 Stonehenge is a quite unique prehistoric monument that has Unesco World Heritage status.\u00a0 \u00a0We are supposed to be conserving it not just for the nation but the planet, and at present are failing dismally.<\/p>\n

You don’t have to be a paid-up pagan or druid to appreciate that this circle of megalithic stones represent an extraordinary imaginative and creative effort of our prehistoric fathers that compares well with our own Millennium Dome of 5000 years later – and how much better it would have been to divert some small change from that grandiose project to Salisbury Plain.<\/p>\n

Surely it behoves us to spend what little money we have left in the public purse on preserving one of our greatest monuments before embarking on far more expensive new projects?\u00a0 Or, as a Conservative Party obsessed with home-owners might put it, perhaps we should fix the roof before we build an extension?<\/p>\n

\u00a0see The Times for the published version of this piece<\/a>\u00a0(subscribers only)<\/p>\n

and the piece prompted the following letter in the Times a few days later:<\/p>\n

July 16 2010\u00a0<\/p>\n

Letters to the Editor:\u00a0\u00a0Stonehenge<\/p>\n

Sir, Hugh Thomson (Thunderer<\/em>, the Times, July 13) rightly questions the wisdom of the coalition Government\u2019s decision to cut its support for improving the setting and building of a new visitor centre at Stonehenge, an icon of our national heritage and the centrepiece of the \u201ccultural offer\u201d pitched to the International Olympics Committee for 2012. The casual saving of \u00a310 million places Stonehenge under threat as a World Heritage Site of outstanding universal value.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The news is felt all the more painfully since this is now the third time the project has been cancelled and it is estimated that \u00a345 million to \u00a355 million has already been spent abortively in developing these proposals. More than \u00a325 million has been promised from other sources including the Heritage Lottery Fund. Added to this, the visitor centre has already received planning permission. So to make a saving of \u00a310 million at this advanced stage makes no sense, either financially or strategically. It would be cheaper to finish the job now, rather than cancel and have to start again.\u00a0We invite the Government to seek an effective solution to the problem.<\/p>\n

Professor Maurice Howard
\nProfessor Geoffrey Wainwright
\nProfessor Colin Renfrew
\nProfessor Timothy Darvill<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stonehenge was given to the nation in 1918.\u00a0 So far, almost a century later, the nation has done a remarkably bad job at looking after it.\u00a0 The situation at the site is currently, as its custodians English Heritage put it, \u2018severely compromised\u2019 and as others like leading archaeologist Mike Pitts would say, \u2018 an embarrassing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,4,1,3],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-news","category-uncategorized","category-travel","tag-stonehenge","tag-times","tag-visitor-centre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1049,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions\/1049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}