Today I attended the bus tour to Stonehenge and Bath. The trip up to Stonehenge was relaxing. I was really surprised that as we approached we could see the stones as we approached. The car park is on one side and a subway to the monument on the opposite. The plain has been roped off to allow visitors to complete a circuit. The site is maintained by the English Heritage Organization which is sponsored by Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
The site was first under construction about 5,000 years ago;, the site as it appears was erected about 400 years after the first construction. The Aubrey holes were uncovered by John Aubrey in 1666 which were the remnants of a timber construction. There are two types of stone that make up the henge; the smaller bluestones which were carted in from the Preselli Mountains in South Wales (240 miles away) and the larger sarsen stones which were brought to the site from Marlborough Downs (19 miles away).
The countryside is pastoral. I think that we were all transfixed by the sheep. We had about an hour to tour around. The gift shop was charming.
The second leg of your trip was to Bath. Bath was occupied prior to the Roman occupation (around 50 BC) and at the time was known as Aquae Sulis. Following the exit of the Romans, the Saxons invaded but life was not greatly interrupted. Bath Abbey began construction in 1499 prompted by a dream which visited Bishop Oliver King. Medieval Bath was a center for manufacture of wool cloth and remained so into the 16th and 17th centuries.
Bath in the 18th ce was a fashionable place and many of the buildings; the Circus, Royal Crescent, Assembly Rooms, Octagon and Margaret Chapel where built. Summers in Bath were popular among the rich. Bath did not remain an important town, but continued as a market town popular with locals and tourists.
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