Salisbury Travel Forum

As I sometimes do, I was studying a GB road atlas, and my attention was caught by a fairly large white spot called the "Salisbury Plains". What is this place about, why is it so scarcely populated? Nuclear disaster area? Military training range? National park? No-go-zone of the local independence movement? Inquiring minds want to know! ;-)

Guten tag,
Look at this page:
http://www.shaister.com/archives/000058.html

I was in your neighboorhood in November, in
Koln. Great city, love the Kolsch.
Best regards,
Bob K

A military training area.

Not just a military training area. The Salisbury Plains is home to Stonehenge.

Thanks, folks. Stonehenge is between the A 360 and the A 303 near the villages of Shrewton and Amesbury. But further up north and north-west there is virtually nothing! .... Enford Down.... Littleton Down...TenantryDown.... just one road crossing this area and the rest entirely blank!

If I remember rightly, there are a lot of (unmarked) tank trails all over that area!

Well, I guess mystery now solved...really looks like a large military training area.... As for stone circles I'll probably stick with the Isle of Lewis one...

I'd like to visit Bath though one day -- and Devon and Cornwall!

I remember driving to see Stonehenge. looked through the fence. Was awed. Drove away. Saw 'woodhenge' marked on the map, so went to check that out. An ancient timber circle with low concrete posts to mark the spots where the rotted timber had once been. Was not awed.

Have yet to see the Lewis one, but would love to one day.

Salisbury Plain is covered with ancient monuments, barrows, tombs, circles, processional ways etc. Its use for many years as a military training ground has, strangely, helped to limit the damage which might otherwise have been done to what is a hugely important prehistoric landscape. There is at least one village which was depopulated by the army (in the 1940's?), although the church is still standing and I believe a service is held there once a year.

By the way, Woodhenge was originally as stunning as Stonehenge (which itself was preceded by a wood circle made of massive timbers about 40 feet high......there are three white circles in the car park which marks the site of some of the timbers, though most people think they're mini-roundabouts!). It is next to a huge Iron Age camp called Durrington Walls, unfortunately on private land and with no public access.

Salisbury plains are a military training area used by the army. I''m heading there early next year with my Territorial Army unit.

If you head west of Stonehenge, through Shrewton and Chitterne, you can see on your right the vast expanse of Salisbury Plain and a shelled-out town, the ruins of which will never feature on any map.

They've just reintroduced the Great Bustard onto the Plan....apparantly the heaviest flying bird in the world...the last local news report said that most were doing OK!

HI, in todays paper there is a write up on the re-introduction to Wiltsthire of the Great Bustard, and Wiltshire was chosen as the first re-introduction to England of an extinct species as the bustard features on the county crest..

In August a conservationist released 22 orphaned chicks from Russia on Salisbury Plain in a bid to remedy the 172 yr. absence.

I think you mean the Village of Imber :)