Built 4,500 years ago, Stonehenge is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world. It is a slab of ancient history that looms over Salisbury Plain, as old as the Pyramids and equally fascinating as a feat of construction. It is instantly recognisable: the hulking sarsens, the improbable lintels. This horseshoe of stone – described by Thomas Hardy in Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) as "a forest of monoliths" – commands the landscape for miles around.
