Fight for Stonehenge takes to the air

Fight for Stonehenge takes to the air

Hot-air balloonists will highlight danger of traffic-choked roads and call for tunnel beneath monument

Robin McKie, science editorSunday July 23, 2006The Observer

A hot-air balloon will rise over Salisbury Plain tomorrow on a trip that will mark one of the country's strangest scientific breakthroughs: the 100th anniversary of the first aerial photograph of Stonehenge.

The 1906 flight was the first use of air reconnaissance for studying ancient monuments in Britain, and will be commemorated with a balloon flight of English Heritage officials and other VIPs. 'Aerial photographs are our main method for finding new [archaeological] sites,' said Martyn Barber, of English Heritage's aerial survey unit. 'They are invaluable for studying the past.'

But the trip has another purpose. It is to form part of an unofficial campaign by English Heritage to maintain public awareness of the World Heritage site. They are anxious to press ministers who have promised they will decide in the next few months on what to do with the main roads that run near the 5,000-year-old stone circle.

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