The hotly debated plan for the capital's Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, a circle of huge tablets engraved with his speeches ( and promptly dubbed by one of its critics, `` Instant Stonehenge '' ), is another of Udall's headaches, since as supervisor of the National Parks Commission he will share in the responsibility for building it.

If this etymology is combined with the tradition reported by Geoffrey of Monmouth stating that Ambrosius Aurelianus ordered the building of Stonehenge – which is located within the parish of Amesbury ( and where Ambrosius was supposedly buried ) – and with the presence of an Iron Age hill fort also in that parish, then it may be tempting to connect Ambrosius with Amesbury.

The complex including Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness, Skara Brae, as well as other tombs and standing stones represents a concentration of Neolithic sites that is rivalled in Britain only by the complexes associated with Stonehenge and Avebury.

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury.

One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks.

As often happens in archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from antiquarian usage, and Stonehenge is not truly a henge site as its bank is inside its ditch.

Despite being contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles, Stonehenge is in many ways atypical – for example, at over tall, its extant trilithons supporting lintels held in place with mortise and tenon joints, make it unique.

Stonehenge is therefore interpreted as functioning as an enclosed cremation cemetery at this time, the earliest known cremation cemetery in the British Isles.

There is little or no direct evidence for the construction techniques used by the Stonehenge builders.

This is the oldest known depiction of Stonehenge.

After the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985 this use of the site was stopped for several years, and currently ritual use of Stonehenge is carefully controlled.

The new discovery is part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project which began in the summer of 2010.

is: Stonehenge

* c. 2750 BC — 1500 BC — Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England, is built.

The stone is referred to in the comedy play by Derek Webb called Bringing Back the Bluestones in which a Welsh group decide to emulate the return of the Stone of Scone to Scotland by demanding the return of the Bluestones from Stonehenge to Pembrokeshire.

* 2000 BC: Stonehenge is believed to have been completed.

Stonehenge, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site is about 8 miles ( 13 km ) northwest of Salisbury and greatly aids the local economy.

The permanent Stonehenge exhibition gallery has interactive displays about Stonehenge and the archaeology of south Wiltshire, and its collections include the skeleton of the Amesbury Archer, which is on display.

He has owned and operated Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. since 1985.

The land on the western side of the toll road is owned by the National Trust, forming part of its Stonehenge Landscape property.

The two roads currently pass through Stonehenge and land owned by the National Trust with the A303 passing directly south and the A344 directly to the north with a pedestrian tunnel passing from the Stonehenge visitor centre to the site underneath this road.

Several of the remaining clumps stand on land owned by the National Trust's Stonehenge Landscape property.

The land owned by the Trust comprises almost one third of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, and contains nearly 400 ancient monuments ( most of them scheduled ).

It has been suggested that megaliths found at Nabta Playa are examples of the world's first known archaeoastronomical devices, predating Stonehenge by some 1, 000 years.

Stonehenge and other ancient sites are revered by many who practice New Age spirituality.

Archaeological evidence found by the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2008 indicates that Stonehenge could possibly have served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings.

Stonehenge was produced by a culture that left no written records.

On the other hand, Professor Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University has suggested that Stonehenge was part of a ritual landscape and was joined to Durrington Walls by their corresponding avenues and the River Avon.

It should be pointed out that both explanations were mooted in the 12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth ( below ), who extolled the curative properties of the stones and was also the first to advance the idea that Stonehenge was constructed as a funerary monument.

The 1905 mass initiation ritual held by the Ancient Order of Druids at Stonehenge.

Throughout the twentieth century, Stonehenge began to be revived as a place of religious significance, this time by adherents of Neopagan and New Age beliefs, particularly the Neo-druids: the historian Ronald Hutton would later remark that " it was a great, and potentially uncomfortable, irony that modern Druids had arrived at Stonehenge just as archaeologists were evicting the ancient Druids from it.

The most accurate early plan of Stonehenge was that made by Bath architect John Wood in 1740.

Excavations were once again carried out in 1978 by Atkinson and John Evans during which they discovered the remains of the Stonehenge Archer in the outer ditch, and in 1979 rescue archaeology was needed alongside the Heel Stone after a cable-laying ditch was mistakenly dug on the roadside, revealing a new stone hole next to the Heel Stone.

In 1993 the way that Stonehenge was presented to the public was called ' a national disgrace ' by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.

More recent excavations include a series of digs held between 2003 and 2008 known as the Stonehenge Riverside Project, led by Mike Parker Pearson.

A licence for the removal of human remains at Stonehenge had been granted by the Ministry of Justice in May 2008, in accordance with the Statement on burial law and archaeology issued in May 2008.

* Stonehenge 20th Century Excavations Databases An English Heritage commissioned report by Wessex Archaeology on the 20th century excavations.

The Ridgeway passes near many Neolithic, Iron Age, and Bronze Age sites including Avebury Circle, a stone circle similar to Stonehenge ; Barbury Castle, Liddington Castle, Uffington Castle, Segsbury Castle, Pulpit Hill and Ivinghoe Beacon Hill, all Iron Age and Bronze Age hill forts ; Wayland's Smithy, a Neolithic chieftain burial tomb ; the Uffington White Horse, an ancient chalk horse carved into the hillside near Uffington Castle ; and Grim's Ditch, a section of earthwork near Mongewell created by Iron Age peoples as a possible demarcation line.

Some of their works are considered precursors of archaeoastronomy ; antiquarians interpreted the astronomical orientation of the ruins that dotted the English countryside as William Stukeley did of Stonehenge in 1740, while John Aubrey in 1678 and Henry Chauncy in 1700 sought similar astronomical principles underlying the orientation of churches.

Prior to Parsons ' departure from The Byrds, he had accompanied the two Rolling Stones to Stonehenge ( along with McGuinn and Hillman ) in the English county of Wiltshire, where Richards had a house near the ancient site.

"< ref name =" OEDhenge "> Christopher Chippindale's Stonehenge Complete gives the derivation of the name Stonehenge as coming from the Old English words stān meaning " stone ", and either hencg meaning " hinge " ( because the stone lintels hinge on the upright stones ) or hen ( c ) en meaning " hang " or " gallows " or " instrument of torture ".

Later archaeologists, including Christopher Chippindale of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge and Brian Edwards of the University of the West of England, campaigned to give the public more knowledge of the various restorations and in 2004 English Heritage included pictures of the work in progress in its book Stonehenge: A History in Photographs.

* Cleal, R. M. J., Walker, K. E. & Montague, R., Stonehenge in its landscape ( English Heritage, London, 1995 )

* Richards, J, English Heritage Book of Stonehenge ( B T Batsford Ltd, 1991 )

* Julian Richards Stonehenge: A History in Photographs ( English Heritage, London, 2004 )

* English Heritage: Stonehenge: Historical Background

* Stonehenge English Heritage official site: access and visiting information ; research ; future plans

They started the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1974, but English Heritage later banned the festival, resulting in the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985.

English Heritage's best known role is as the steward of over 400 significant historical and archaeological sites, from Stonehenge to the world's earliest iron bridge.

Stonehenge, one of English Heritage's most famous sites

English Heritage is the guardian of over 400 sites and monuments, the most famous of which include Stonehenge, Iron Bridge and Dover Castle.

Nearby is the pre-historic site of Stonehenge, which is administered by English Heritage.

Several other important Neolithic monuments in Wiltshire in the care of English Heritage, including the large henges at Marden and Stonehenge, may be culturally or functionally related to Avebury and Silbury.

William Stukeley FRS, FRCP, FSA ( 7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765 ) was an English antiquarian who pioneered the archaeological investigation of the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury, work for which he has been remembered as " probably ... the most important of the early forerunners of the discipline of archaeology ".

Attempting to rid themselves of the problem of the protestors, English Heritage gained an interim injunction banning a series of the most prominent protestors from the vicinity of the site, including Des Crow, Geoff Needham, Buster Nolan and Rollo Maughfling, the self-declared " Archdruid of Stonehenge and Glastonbury ", who at one point and climbed on top of Seahenge to declare an eight-point proclamation.

In recent years on the Summer Solstice, English Heritage has run a " Managed Open Access " to Stonehenge for the Summer Solstice celebrations.

Alton Towers grew into a collection of gardens: a Swiss Cottage, a Stonehenge, a Dutch garden, a Pagoda Fountain, said to be based on the To Ho pagoda in Canton, Lysicrates ' Choragic Monument from Athens ( a feature in English gardens since the 1760s ), domed glasshouses ( originally gilded ), even a fairly large Matterhorn as a backing to one of England's earliest Alpine gardens.

This monument complex has been called ' The Stonehenge of the North ' and has been described by English Heritage as the most important ancient site between Stonehenge and the Orkney Islands.