BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?

Subject: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: GUEST,clockwatcher
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 07:58 AM

Apparently the plan has been dropped. Not only would it have protected the site and the area, it would have freed up the nearby main road (A303) from being a single carriageway bottleneck.

As it stood it would have cost about £350 million. And of course our poor miserable country can't afford it. Not when we've got to give the European Union £70 billion over the next seven years, and bring peace and democracy to Iraq (yeah, right).

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: GUEST,Fibula at work
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 08:09 AM

One of the excuses given is 'rare phosphorous chalk'.
The real excuse is 'all the money has gone to the Olympics'.

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Morticia
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 08:41 AM

It's a real pity. I have to use that damn A303 regularly and in the evenings it takes hours to go a couple of miles...Friday evenings the stones probably move faster.

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:28 AM

Well, you can bet the stones did use the A303 to get there. They probably walked cross-country.

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Rog Peek
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:07 AM

If it had been another white elephant like the millennium dome, they wouldn't have hessitated. Oh, and of course dropping a few bombs on someone in the name of peace would most certainly have qualified.

Rog

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: MMario
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:09 AM

A little background for those of us not in the know?

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: skipy
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:15 AM

www.new-age.co.uk/stonehenge-tunnel.htm
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:18 AM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/7130666.stm

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: MMario
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:34 AM

Interesting that people are argueing "Stonehenge's cultural value will be lost" on BOTH sides of the issue!

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 11:42 AM

I assume that merely constructing a ground-level bypass around the area is not feasible? Is land not available?

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:43 PM

It's kind of funny, today, reading a Thomas Hardy novel. Everything takes place in that same part of the country, and all of those old structures existed at the time--especially the roads--but the characters seem to go on about their business without taking much notice of them. Like they are mountains, or outcroppings, or something of nature.

                      I recently re-read "The Return of the Native," and that whole aspect of the thing struck me as odd. Though I don't think it did when I first read the book many years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: rangeroger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 02:01 AM

I was a 14 year old Boy Scout in 1960 and attended the Jubilee Campout in that year on the Salsbury Plain. After watching the sword movies of the fifties, there I was camped within sight of Stonehenge.
An American!
It was an amazing experiance. I still have the British Army commando knife that I traded a neckerchief slide for.
Think it's worth more than that slide now anyway.
Won a lot of splits games with knife at the campout.
Can't imagine a traffic jam by the circle, but I have read articles about the problems, and can only say,give it a wide berth.

rr

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Morticia
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 04:27 AM

There is land, Bill, owned for the large part by the Ministry of Defence. Salisbury plains is where they go to play soldiers.Can't see the MOD giving it up somehow.

Of course some of the hold ups on the 303 are grockles slowing down to gawp at the stones, understandable but frustrating.

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 01:19 AM

To enlighten the Americans a little - although the A303 is a major trunk road, there are large sections that are still only one lane each way across Salisbury Plain...

It's one of the main roads to the South West and the West Country (Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, Somerset) from the Midlands and north of England, so is frequently jammed with holidaymakers (grockles as they're known by the inhabitants of the West country) who don't want to pay the extortionate rates in the National Trust car park if they aren't a member.

Leaving the Stones aside, the whole area around there is absolutely stiff with rare chalk downs and their resident wildlife, ancient archaeology that baffles even the most brilliant and enlightened professor and as Morty says, training grounds for the Ministry of Defence (M.O.D.) - who are notorious for not wanting to relinquish ownership of land they hold. There's also an airfield which the Government insists should be operational 24/7/365.

It officially has World Heritage status, National Trust manage a portion, it's a National Nature reserve, a Site of Special Scientfic Interest (SSSI), has Special Landscape and Conservation Areas. It's also a sacred site for various religions (Druids being the obvious one) and millions of people all over the world.

The need for a by-pass is obvious, but it's not going to happen just yet.

Personally, I find it ironic that the Government have scrapped the plans for money reasons, because it's spent so much sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan from that very airfield...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: No tunnel for Stonehenge?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 09:33 AM

Wonderful comment form rr - Not to do with the henge or tunnel but reminding us of the simpler days when teenage lads could carry commando knives:-) Imagine any youngster being stopped by the law for carrying one of these babies and trying to explain he was on the way to a Scout jamboree nowadays!

I used to carry my scout 'sheath knife' when out hiking right up to about 10 years ago when I realised that if I was pulled up in the city with it I would probably be arrested:-(

Cheers

Dave