It was stopped in 1978, when English Heritage banned going into the monument because of increasing annual number of tourists (about half a million) coming to see one of the most spectacular places of interest in England.
Also I was surprised by the large crowds there, though I was told it is not a quiet place anymore.. I almost got sick when I saw the full parking lot and hundreds of visitors. Though I had regretted it, I finally appreciated it had to become a restricted area - that crowds would surely destroy it in several years. Not by any kind of violence; simply by 'touching for luck' and walking around.. By the way, I definitely got sick then, as I saw that the admission, which is so much more expensive than any admission of that kind at home - £2.50 or £1.90 if you show your student card. But say, wouldn't you pay everything you have for your dream?
The Rocks, as the natives familiarly call Stonehenge, is not the only prehistoric stone monument. It's only one of the most sophisticated henges i.e. circular monuments containig trilithons.. we know also Woodhenge, Coneyburyhenge and a few others. Besides rare henges there are many other kinds of neolitic stone monuments as cromlechs, walls, long and round barrows, dolmens, menhirs.. Since the wave of the Megalithic People rolled over Europe continuously from the east and was stopped at the ocean, most of the megaliths were built on the coast, British Isles and Ireland. But you can find megaliths also in middle and eastern Europe - those are mostly simple erected stones called menhirs. In Czechoslovakia, the tallest menhir stands at village Klobouky near Kladno in Bohemia, it is 3.5m tall and people use to call it The Stone Man or The Stone Shepherd. Almost all the other menhirs in our country are of small size from one to two metres.
Well, in fact every stone you pick up from the earth is millions years old, but especially Stonehenge as well as a few other places on this planet has got the very ambience of eternity because it was made by man, by our early ancestry. All of them show you that there still are some romantic mysteries in this world awaiting solutions - a challenge also to you, dear readers. At Stonehenge I was getting weird feelings when imagined all the human loves and tears which have been passing by for five thousand years while these magic stones patiently stood there. They stood, and the shaggy English sheep were cropping the grass around peacefuly...