3000 BCEarly Henge

The first Stonehenge is built, an earthwork enclosure about 100 metres across enclosed by a circular ditch and two banks. Within the ditch is a ring of 56 timber or stone posts. This monument is used as a cremation cemetery for several hundred years.

The ‘bluestones’ from the Preseli Hills in Wales, over 150 miles (250km) away, may have arrived around this time.

2500 BCFirst Raised Stones

Over 80 large sarsen stones are brought from the Marlborough Downs, 15 miles (25km) away, and raised in the centre of the enclosure in two concentric arrangements. A huge undertaking, this would have taken many years to complete. The smaller bluestones are set up in a double arc between them.

2400 BCIndividual Graves

A new group of people arrive at Stonehenge from Europe, bringing with them the burial practices and beliefs of the so-called Beaker culture, named after their distinctive pottery. Well-furnished individual Beaker graves are dug near the Stonehenge site, including the richest grave ever discovered from the time of Stonehenge – that of the Amesbury Archer, as he became known.

2300–2200 BCAltered Stones

The central bluestones are rearranged to form a circle and inner oval. The earthwork Avenue connects Stonehenge with the river Avon.

2100–1500 BCBronze Age barrows

Hundreds of burial mounds are raised in the Stonehenge landscape for rich, individual burials, forming the densest concentration of burial mounds in Britain. Two rings of pits are dug around the sarsen circle, perhaps for a rearrangement that was never completed. 

1750–1500 BCBronze Age Carvings

Four of the sarsens are adorned with over 100 carvings of axeheads and a few daggers, perhaps symbols of power or status.

700 BCIron Age Hillfort

A major hillfort, Vespasian’s Camp, is built about a mile east of Stonehenge, near the river Avon.

AD 43 – early 5th CenturyRoman Activity

Many Roman objects are left at Stonehenge, suggesting that the site may be a place of ritual importance to Romano-British people.

14th to 19th CenturiesNational Interest

Writers, artists and antiquarians take more and more interest in Stonehenge. But the condition of the monument deteriorates and some of the stones fall.

1897–A military landscape

The Ministry of Defence buys a vast area of Salisbury Plain for army training and military use, including a First World War airfield, which have an impact on the landscape.

1901–64Restoration

In 1901 landowner Sir Edmund Antrobus organises the re-erection of the leaning tallest trilithon – the start of a sequence of campaigns to conserve and restore Stonehenge.

1918Given to the Nation

Local landowner Cecil Chubb, who bought Stonehenge three years earlier from the Antrobus family, gives it to the nation.

2013A New Setting

The road which ran close to the stones is closed. A new visitor centre is built 2 kilometres away from the monument, and the stone circle is reunited with its sacred landscape.