Back to list A303 Stonehenge

Representation by Consortium of 22 Stonehenge experts

Date submitted
4 January 2019
Submitted by
Members of the public/businesses
  1. The above-ground works will have a negative impact on the WHS, especially beyond the western portal where a substantial area will become archaeologically ‘sterile’. This will permanently damage a major block of land within the WHS and degrade its OUV, contrary to the recommendations of UNESCO and other international and national parties.
  2. East of the eastern portal, works are likely to imperil the continued preservation of deposits, especially those with organic remains at the internationally important prehistoric site of Blick Mead. No informed decision is possible here until long-term evaluation of the proposal’s impact on changing groundwater levels and contamination by road run-off is undertaken.
  3. West of the western portal, the above-ground works will cut through a zone of internationally important archaeological deposits, some related to stages in the construction and use of Stonehenge. It is certain that intensive future archaeological research will be needed to explore and understand these deposits. A) Dating of human burials and artefacts recovered during initial evaluation demonstrates that they belong broadly to the third of Stonehenge’s five construction stages, and potentially indicate the settlement area where the builders lived. Although these remains have been disturbed by agricultural activity, a fine-grained spatial distribution of artefacts and ecofacts still survives within the ploughsoil, in addition to the features that survive undisturbed beneath this layer. Together, these provide important evidence of prehistoric inhabitation and other activity close to Stonehenge. As extensive traces of Chalcolithic and earliest Bronze Age settlement, they have an international significance, one further enhanced by their connection to the monument. B) The road line will cut through the densest concentration in Britain of Neolithic long barrows (burial mounds dating to 3800–3300 BC) in an area of less than 4 sq km between Stonehenge and the western edge of the WHS. Pre-dating Stonehenge, these are likely to have a bearing on why Stonehenge was located where it is, and may themselves be related to an unusual phenomenon of deep natural-solution shafts in this area, one of which was discovered during initial evaluation. These mysterious shafts were significant in prehistory: a man-made example close to the planned road line, the ‘Wilsford shaft’, contained a rare deposit of organic Neolithic material. These are clear indications that important remains relating to periods even older than Stonehenge will be destroyed. Surviving and so far undisturbed archaeological remains – likely to number hundreds of thousands of artefacts, and more than 100 prehistoric features – are the remnants of a palimpsest of prehistoric activities that were especially dense west of the western portal. These remains must not be destroyed. Mitigation by archaeological excavation in advance of destruction is not the answer. This can never achieve anything like a 100% record and inevitably leads to the loss of most finds in unsampled topsoil. Moreover, such an approach overlooks advances in archaeological field methods: it is impossible to anticipate the kinds of evidence that new investigative techniques will generate in the future. The only safe course is to respect this critical area by leaving it intact for our descendants to return to with their new questions and new methods. The proposal must be rejected.