Proposals for a tunnel at Stonehenge: an
assessment of the alternatives
A report to the WAC Executive
Robert Layton and Julian Thomas
In January 1999 the plenary session of WAC 4 passed the
We the participants of WAC 4 welcome the concern demonstrated
by the UK Government to safeguard the future of [the] Stonehenge World
Heritage site but urge the UK Government to reconsider its decision to
insert a cut and cover tunnel across the World Heritage site. Particularly
we ask that the UK Government looks again at the costs of a bored tunnel
taking into account the full potential benefits, economic, social and
cultural, and finds funding to build it. This appeal is made in view of
the long campaign by English Heritage, the Government's advisors in archaeological
matters, in favour of a bored tunnel. WAC would wish to work with the
UK government to make the reassessment possible, and to help the UK government
in moving the project forward.
The Executive of WAC asked Julian Thomas and Robert Layton
to prepare a report which would enable WAC to determine what action it
should take in response to the motion.
The archaeology of the Stonehenge area
The landscape surrounding the prehistoric enclosure and stone circle at
Stonehenge in southern Wiltshire contains an unusually dense concentration
of archaeological evidence, and rightfully constitutes a World Heritage
Site. Any assessment of the likely impact of the construction of a road
tunnel, and of the benefits of the removal of surface roads from the vicinity
of the monument must be made in the context of an understanding of the
development of this unique landscape. For the purposes of this document,
we will outline the prehistoric remains of the Stonehenge area (Figure
For the most part, the evidence for Mesolithic occupation on central Salisbury
Plain is very limited, although a microlithic flint industry has been
recovered from beside the river Avon near Durrington Walls (Richards 1990,
263). More significant are a group of large post-holes excavated in the
Stonehenge car-park by the Vatchers, which appear to date to the eighth
millennium BC (Cleal, Walker and Montague 1995, 43). Three of the four
posts line up with a nearby tree-hole, and give the impression that some
form of very early (and unique) monumental structure may have existed
in the immediate vicinity of Stonehenge.
In the earlier part of the Neolithic (from 4000 BC onwards), the Stonehenge
area saw the emergence of one of the principal concentrations of ceremonial
monuments in southern England. These include the causewayed enclosure
at Robin Hood's Ball, and a group of earthen long barrows, which are especially
densely concentrated on Wilsford and Normanton Downs (Figure 1). These
long mounds contained a variety of mortuary deposits, including bodies
in various states of articulation and disaggregation. The location and
orientation of some of the long mounds suggests an close connection with
the two large linear enclosures of the Greater and Lesser Cursus, which
may consequentially be relatively early in date (the single radiocarbon
date from the Great Cursus suggests otherwise). The surface collection
work of the Stonehenge Environs Project was able to identify a number
of scatters of chipped stone tools and waste which complement the distribution
of these monuments, on the King Barrow Ridge and Coneybury Hill, near
Winterbourne Stoke Crossroads and the Diamond, north of the Cursus, and
perhaps also on Stonehenge Down (Richards 1990: 265-6). Furthermore, there
have been sporadic finds of Early Neolithic pottery, and a number of pits,
principally concentrated in a swathe of country on the west of the River
Avon, southward from the King Barrow Ridge. These include the spectacular
deposit at the Coneybury 'Anomaly', a large pit containing numerous animal
bones and pottery sherds, seemingly lining the pit interior (Richards
The earliest phase of activity at Stonehenge itself dates
to late in the Earlier Neolithic, at around 3000 BC, consisting of a circular
interupted ditch with internal bank, and a concentric circle o