The underground access to the real Stonehenge has received much criticism over the years since it was built in 1968, but in my mind it has a great deal of symbolic significance. The modern entrances to many heritage buildings are too simplistic: they are above ground, with simple linear access to the monuments, thus denying them any sense of mystery. At Stonehenge it is different. There is nothing linear about access at all. Instead, you have to park your car on the wrong side of the road from the monument, then pass through an underground subway, which symbolises your death and rebirth. When you emerge from the ground you are a new being; you are now on the right side of the road, in the sacred space, and you are now allowed to approach the holy place. You then make one full circuit of Stonehenge following the path laid out by English Heritage, in the same manner that thousands of pilgrims before you have done. Then you pass back through the underworld to return to the secular reality from whence you came.
It is interesting how many stone circle sites in England have strange kinks in their modern access routes. At Avebury for instance, the lane from the National Trust car park kinks and meanders it way past houses and gardens before emerging in the village street. At Stanton Drew there is a dog-leg approach from the car park to the circle, seemingly for no reason other than the farmer's whim to make it so, because a straight-line, linear approach would be just as possible, as far as I can tell. Arbor Low and Boscawen Un have strange dog-leg walks too.
Why should this be? Perhaps there is an unconscious need to make access difficult, or to make it special. By forcing the visitor to make turns and twists in order to reach the monument, the paths are forcing the visitor to exert righteous effort. And Stonehenge, by symbolising death and rebirth in its underground subway, has perhaps the best modern access of all.
