A different view

It's only when you get out into the wider landscape that you come to appreciate one of the oddnesses of Stonehenge - it looks bigger the further away you are.

It's to do with the apparent size of the people walking around it - they give you a sense of proportion that somehow disappears when you're on the visitor path.

Then, there's nothing of an obvious human scale to give you a sense of the immensity of the sarsen uprights. In the following image, although you know that the stones are big (because everyone knows that Stonehenge is big) you've no real idea of how big.

This is probably why so many people say "It's not as big as I expected" when they finally get to see it.

If you do get the chance to go inside the circle - something you can do freely four times a year at the solstice and equinox dawns, and by appointment out of hours the rest of the year - then the scale changes again.

All of a sudden they're huge and how these massive blocks were dragged 20 miles across Salisbury Plain becomes a very real puzzle.