Stonehenge from London: What It Costs and How to Get There

In this guide

Stonehenge admission is £27.20 to £32.30 for an adult booked ahead, and which of those you pay depends entirely on the date you pick. English Heritage runs three price bands, and a Wednesday in late October costs £5 less than the Saturday before.

The harder question is how you get there. Stonehenge sits in a field off the A303 with no station anywhere near it, and the honest answer is that the public transport route works — it just hangs on one hourly bus from Salisbury that stops running mid-afternoon.

💡 The Short Version: Adult advance £27.20–£32.30 by date, 15% more on the day, children half price, members free — and National Trust England members free too. Open 09:30–17:00 daily, shut only on Christmas Day, last ticket sold 14:30. Train Waterloo to Salisbury, 1h23, from £16.40, then the Stonehenge Tour bus, £43.50 including admission — but only five buses out in winter, the last at 14:05. Inside the circle is the Stone Circle Experience only, from £70. Free at the solstices and equinoxes — next up 23 September 2026. Allow two hours on site. Parking £4.

Book a tour direct:

• £66 — Stonehenge morning trip, entry included
• £85 — Stonehenge and Bath, with Stonehenge entry
• £140.25 — Inner Circle access, inside the stones

What it costs

Advance is exactly 15% below the door price in every band, and you can book online until midnight the day before and still get it. Booking a later arrival time on the day you have chosen can knock a little more off again.

In the Standard band the same family ticket is £80.75, and the child is £16.15. Children are simply half the adult price, and the family ticket is a genuine saving on top — two adults and two children come to £68.00 rather than £81.60.

💡 Every price above includes a voluntary 10% donation, because that is the figure English Heritage leads with. You can decline it and pay less: the adult advance ticket is £24.65 in the Super Saver band and £29.32 in the Standard band without it. The donation lets the charity reclaim Gift Aid, so it is worth more to them than it costs you — but it is optional, and the checkout does not make that obvious.

National Trust England members get in free, booking online with the code G03ANZ and bringing the card plus photo ID. That is England only, not Scotland and not international National Trust bodies. People with refugee or displaced-person status also enter English Heritage sites free.

Opening hours, and the one day it shuts

09:30 to 17:00, seven days a week, right through to the end of the published calendar in March 2027. In June, July and August the site runs to 19:00.

⚠️ Last admission is two hours before closing, and the last ticket of the day is sold at 14:30 — 16:30 in June, July and August. That is much earlier than people expect, and it is the rule that catches out anyone planning a lazy start.

The only closure is Christmas Day. Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are all normal 09:30–17:00 days. Hours on the solstices — 21 June and 22 December 2026 — are subject to change.

Tickets are valid all day, so you can arrive any time within opening hours and stay as long as you like. You are still given an arrival slot when you book, and if you turn up more than half an hour late you may be held to the next slot with space.

Getting there without a tour

The train

London Waterloo to Salisbury is direct, twice an hour, and takes 1h23 to 1h30. Checking a Tuesday in September, advance singles ran from £16.40 to £36.60 depending on the departure, and the cheapest same-day return on any train was £32.80. Coming back, evening singles from Salisbury were £23.30 to £32.30.

Salisbury is 12 miles from the stones, so the train only gets you two thirds of the way.

The Stonehenge Tour bus

Operated by Salisbury Reds, hop-on hop-off from Salisbury rail station forecourt and New Canal Stand U in the city centre, out to Stonehenge and back via Old Sarum. Commentary in ten languages. About 35 minutes each way.

The bus-only ticket does not include Stonehenge entry. Buy the combined one: £43.50 against £20.50 plus a £27.20 admission is cheaper and throws in Old Sarum, and it covers the visitor centre shuttle and removes the need to book a time slot at all. Cathedral entry on the all-in ticket stays valid for 48 hours. Tickets are sold online, at Salisbury station, at the tourist information centre, or from the driver — anything over £100 has to be cash.

⚠️ The winter timetable is the reason this trip fails. From 7 September there are five buses out of Salisbury: 10:05, 11:05, 12:05, 13:05 and 14:05, and the last one back leaves Stonehenge at 17:15, reaching the station at 17:35. In summer, 28 March to 6 September, you get a sixth at 15:05 and a last departure at 18:15. Miss a connection at Salisbury and there is no second option except a taxi.

What it actually costs and takes

Catch the 09:00 from Waterloo, make the 11:05 bus, and you are at the stones by 11:40 and back in London by about 16:30. Google Maps puts the door-to-door trip at 2h36 from Charing Cross; once you add the wait at Salisbury, three hours each way is realistic.

On money, one adult mid-week in winter is roughly £33 to £40 for the rail return plus £43.50 for the bus and entry — about £80 all in. A 6½-hour coach from London with admission included starts at £66.

That is why most people end up on a coach. Not cost: one booking, one vehicle, and a departure time that does not depend on a five-a-day bus.

Driving

88.7 miles and 2h11 from Charing Cross via the M3 and A303. Sat nav SP4 7DE. Parking is £4 for non-members, paid by app; members park free with the sticker displayed.

This is one of the few day trips where driving genuinely wins. Two hours each way against three, no five-a-day bus to miss at Salisbury, and £4 to park at the other end — and the car then makes Salisbury, Avebury or the Cotswolds possible on the same day in a way the timetable does not. What a day’s hire actually costs, including the excess and the charges visitors do not see coming, is in our guide to hiring a car and driving in the UK.

Seeing it free, from the National Trust land

The stones sit in 2,100 acres of National Trust downland, and that land is free and open all year. Public byways and bridleways cross it, so you can walk to within a field of the circle without a ticket — the view from King Barrow Ridge, across the Avenue, is the one worth walking for.

The catch is parking. There is no parking anywhere in the landscape, and the only car park is English Heritage’s at the visitor centre, which costs £4 (free if you have a ticket or are a member). So the free version works best on foot: it is about 1½ miles from Amesbury, using the underpass beneath the A303 roundabout, or a mile from Durrington and Woodhenge.

You also get a good look at the circle from the A303 as you drive past, which is how most people in Britain have seen it. You cannot stop on that road, so treat it as a glimpse rather than a visit.

Free is not the same as close. Inside the fence you walk right up to the stones; from the byways you are a few hundred metres away and will want a zoom lens. If the point of the day is the stones themselves, pay.

Inside the circle: the Stone Circle Experience

The trilithons. On a normal ticket the visitor path brings you within about 5m of them. Photo: Daria Agafonova, Pexels.

During opening hours nobody goes inside the stones. The archaeology sits just under the turf and the lichens on the stones are fragile, so the visitor path is the whole of it — a one-way circuit all the way round, hard-standing and grass, closest approach about 5m.

The Stone Circle Experience is the exception. One hour, early morning or evening, outside normal visiting hours, with a guide, and you stand inside the circle.

• From £70 adult (18+), from £40 child 5–17, under-5s free, with member discounts.
• Maximum 52 people per session, split into two groups of 26 at the stones. One group tours inside the circle while the other walks the landscape — the Slaughter Stone, the Heel Stone — then they swap.
• Booking is open to March 2027, and availability is described as very limited.
• There are no sessions in October or November.
• Be ready to board the shuttle ten minutes before your start time. Morning sessions: the café opens at 09:00 and the exhibition at 09:30. Evening sessions: you can be on site an hour before the site shuts to day visitors, so a 17:00 close means arriving by 16:00.
• You may photograph everything. You may not stand on or touch the stones. Meditation, yoga and handfasting need a private booking of the whole session — call 0370 333 1181.

Free access at the solstices and equinoxes

English Heritage opens the monument field free four times a year, and you can walk among the stones.

Autumn Equinox 2026 is Wednesday 23 September. Car park entry from 05:15, the field opens as soon as there is light, sunrise at about 06:54, open access ends at 08:30, car park cleared by 10:00.

⚠️ No public transport runs for the equinoxes at all. Car, taxi, bike or on foot only, with the roads open as normal. For the summer solstice — 20 and 21 June — the opposite applies: car parking must be pre-booked and had sold out well ahead, vehicles without a booking were turned away, and Salisbury Reds laid on special buses from Salisbury station and New Canal instead. The tour bus itself finished early on the Saturday and did not run at all on the Sunday.

The conditions are the same every time: do not touch or climb the stones, no alcohol or drugs, no glass, no drones, no naked flames including incense, no tents or sleeping bags, no amplified music, bags no bigger than about 30 × 25 × 15cm, assistance dogs only. Acoustic instruments are fine. It is dark, the ground is uneven, and a torch matters.

Winter solstice 2026 falls on 22 December.

On site: time, the shuttle and access

Two hours covers it — the exhibition, the shuttle out, a full circuit of the stones and back. English Heritage publishes a two-hour itinerary, a half-day and a full day taking in the wider Wiltshire landscape.

The shuttle leaves from outside the shop, needs no booking, runs every few minutes and takes 5 to 10 minutes. It is not tied to your ticket time. It also stops at Fargo Plantation, roughly halfway, so you can ride out and walk the second half.

Walking instead follows a marked route across National Trust open-access land past Bronze Age burial mounds, 25 to 40 minutes each way, with a dedicated walker’s lane beside the bus road on the return. The round trip from the visitor centre and back is about 2.6 miles (4km), much of it fields and unmade paths. There is no shelter and no toilet at the stones.

Included in every ticket: the shuttle, the exhibition — over 250 objects and the forensically reconstructed face of a man who died 5,500 years ago — the Neolithic houses with volunteers demonstrating Neolithic crafts, and an orientation leaflet. The audio tour is a free download to your own phone, so bring headphones. The guidebook costs extra.

Accessibility: 22 accessible parking bays, set-down 100m from the visitor centre, two wheelchairs and mobility scooters on free loan first-come at the admissions tills, and a fully accessible shuttle that takes Class 2 scooters up to 600 × 1000mm. The path from the bus stop to the circle is about 200m with a slight gradient, and the grass paths around the monument are wheelchair accessible weather permitting — the wider landscape is not. A carer or companion comes free; book their place online. There are braille guides and signage, induction loops on every audio exhibit and till, subtitles and BSL on the spoken exhibits, an audio-described tour, tactile objects in the exhibition plus two touching stones outside, and a Changing Places facility at the visitor centre — bring a RADAR key.

Bags may be searched and there is no cloakroom or left luggage, so travel light. Assistance dogs go everywhere; other dogs are limited to the visitor centre and cannot board the shuttle or enter the stone circle field.

The coach tours

Three products whose own inclusions list puts the admission in the price with no condition attached: a 6½-hour morning trip at £66, a 6-hour half-day at £69.30, and an 11-hour Stonehenge-and-Bath day at £85.

Which Stonehenge tour to book

Sixty GetYourGuide products leave London for the stones. They sort into seven kinds of day, and the thing that really separates them is not the headline price — it is whether the £27.20 gate ticket is inside it. We have read the includes and excludes lists on twenty-seven of them, nineteen of those on 12 September 2026.

Stonehenge only: £66

Stonehenge Morning Day Trip with Admission — £66, 6½ hours, 4.8 from 3,952 reviews. Admission to the monument and exhibition, transport, driver-guide and the downloadable audio guide, all unconditional. Meets outside the Lycée Français, 29–35 Cromwell Road SW7 2DG.

Cheaper, with the entry still in it: Stonehenge Morning or Afternoon Tour at £36.80 (4.4 from 4,747) lists the entrance fee and the site shuttle in both of its two options — but there is no live guide, only the audio guide on your own phone. Evan Evans’ 7-hour half-day at £65 and the 6-hour half-day at £69.30 both include it too.

Stonehenge plus Bath: £85

Stonehenge and Bath Day Trip with Entry Ticket — £85, 11 hours, 4.8 from 3,158 reviews, leaving opposite Gloucester Road station at 07:00. Express entry to Stonehenge, the shuttle, the audio guide and the exhibition are in the price; the Roman Baths are in the exclusions list, and cost about £23.50 bought separately. It is the only Stonehenge-and-Bath coach we read that commits to the Stonehenge ticket.

Stonehenge plus Windsor: nothing includes both as standard

Every Windsor-plus-Stonehenge product we opened makes one or both entry tickets a paid option. The nearest thing to a clean booking is Stonehenge & Windsor Castle Tour with Tickets — £121.50, 11 hours, 4.6 from 398 — where the Windsor Castle ticket is unconditional and only the Stonehenge one depends on the option you pick. Otherwise go to the £71.10 Windsor, Stonehenge and Oxford day (4.4 from 5,876, the most-booked of all sixty) and choose the option literally named “with Stonehenge and Windsor Castle Entry” rather than the cheapest one on the list. Check Windsor’s Tuesday and Wednesday closures first.

Inside the circle: £140.25

Stonehenge Private Inner Circle Tour with Bath — £140.25, 12 hours, 4.9 from 208. Access to the inner circle when the site is closed to the public, sunrise or sunset, plus Bath and a 14th-century pub in Lacock; Roman Baths entry is the one option. Stonehenge Special Access evening tour at £155 (4.8 from 101) swaps Bath for Avebury and West Kennet Long Barrow, from Earls Court. The most-reviewed is Inner Circle and Windsor at £189 (4.9 from 439) — the inner-circle visit is included, the Windsor Castle ticket is the option.

All three are cheaper than doing it yourself only if you count the coach: English Heritage sells the Stone Circle Experience from £70, and you still have to get to Wiltshire at 05:00.

The other shapes of day

• With the Cotswolds — Stonehenge and Cotswolds minibus, £85, 10 hours, 4.7 from 113, early access to the stones and the exhibition included, then 1½ hours in Bourton-on-the-Water.
• With the other stone circles — Stonehenge and Avebury, £98, max 19 people, Stonehenge entry included — though the Avebury leg itself is option-dependent. Stonehenge, Glastonbury and Avebury at £182 includes all three admissions outright, which almost nothing else does.
• With Oxford — Stonehenge and Oxford with Admission, £79, 4.7 from 613, small minibus from Cromwell Road, admission included and the title honest about it.
• Already in Bath? A Stonehenge and Cotswolds day that starts in Bath is listed at £95 with 4.8 from 775 reviews — useful if you are not coming out of London at all.

⚠️ The pattern that costs people money: the entry ticket is named in the title and then made conditional in the inclusions list. The wording to look for is “if option selected”, and it is usually buried among genuinely-included things like Wi-Fi and an audio headset. Windsor, Stonehenge, Bath and Roman Baths — 5,821 reviews, near the top of most searches — names four things and lists “Admissions to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Roman Baths (if purchased)”. Stonehenge & Bath with Optional Roman Baths flags one optional entry in the title and quietly makes the Stonehenge ticket optional too. Stonehenge & Windsor Castle Tour with Tickets says “with Tickets” and means one of the two. Thirteen of the twenty-seven pages we have read do this, including the two most-booked products of all sixty. Open the inclusions list and check that “entry” or “admission” appears with no condition after it — then, at checkout, pick the option that names the ticket.

Two small-group operators handle it honestly and are worth knowing about: Stonehenge, Bath and the Cotswolds at £154 (4.9 from 167) and Stonehenge, Bath and a secret site at £143.10 (4.9 from 172) both state flatly that the Stonehenge ticket is not in the price, print the full English Heritage price table in their exclusions, and sell you the ticket from the guide on the day. No trap — just a number you have to add on.

Does anything else fit in the same day?

Salisbury to Bath Spa is direct, hourly and 54 to 57 minutes, from £23.50 — so doing the pair under your own steam is genuinely viable: Waterloo out, the bus to the stones, then the train on to Bath and home from Paddington. It makes for a long day, and it is the one itinerary where buying it as one coach ticket saves real effort. More on the Georgian end of it in our Bath day trip guide.

The operators pair it two other ways. The most-sold shape is Windsor, Stonehenge and Bath in one day from £71.10 — three places for an hour or two each, and the group where no product includes the entry tickets as standard; Windsor from London is where to check whether the Castle end of it is even open on your date, because it is closed every Tuesday and Wednesday. The other is the small-group Stonehenge, Bath and the Cotswolds day at £154 plus the gate ticket, and that one has a real argument behind it: the Cotswold villages have no railway between them and their buses largely stop on Sundays, which is the one case where a coach seat beats doing it yourself. The Cotswolds from London has the village-by-village version.

What people get wrong

• Arriving after 14:30. The last ticket of the day is gone, even with hours of daylight left.
• Buying the bus-only ticket and discovering at the admissions desk that entry is not in it.
• Missing the last bus back, which leaves Stonehenge at 17:15 in winter.
• Expecting to walk among the stones. That is the Stone Circle Experience, and it is a separate booking from £70.
• Booking the cheapest coach listing whose admission turns out to be an optional paid extra.
• Paying on the day. It is 15% more, and the advance price is available until midnight the night before.
• Picking a Saturday in September when the Wednesday after is £5 less.
• Driving to the solstice without pre-booked parking. Cars without a booking are turned away and illegal parking gets towed.

Continue planning your London trip

• 🗺️ Day trips from London — what the others cost, how long they take, and which days they are shut.
• 🛁 Bath day trip — the other half of the classic coach day, and how to do it by train instead.
• 🏰 Windsor from London — the easiest big day out, and the two days a week it is closed.
• ⚡ Harry Potter Studio Tour — the day trip where you genuinely cannot buy on the door.
• 🏛️ Historic houses in London — grand interiors without leaving the city.

Common questions

How much is Stonehenge?

Adult advance tickets are £27.20, £29.75 or £32.30 depending on the date, including the voluntary 10% donation — £24.65 to £29.32 without it. On the day you pay 15% more: £32.00 to £38.00. Children aged 5 to 17 are half price, and a family of two adults and up to three children is £68.00 to £80.75 in advance. English Heritage and National Trust England members go free.

How do you get to Stonehenge from London without a tour?

London Waterloo to Salisbury is direct, twice an hour, 1h23 to 1h30, with advance singles from £16.40. The Stonehenge Tour bus then runs from the station forecourt: £20.50 adult for the bus alone, or £43.50 for bus plus Stonehenge and Old Sarum admission. Allow about three hours each way door to door.

Can you go inside the stone circle?

Only on a Stone Circle Experience, which runs for an hour in the early morning or evening outside normal opening hours, from £70 adult and £40 child. Sessions take a maximum of 52 people, split into two groups of 26, and there are none in October or November. During normal opening hours everyone stays on the visitor path, which comes within about 5m of the stones.

Is Stonehenge free at the solstice?

Yes. English Heritage gives free managed open access at both solstices and both equinoxes. Autumn Equinox 2026 is Wednesday 23 September, with the car park opening at 05:15, sunrise at about 06:54 and open access ending at 08:30. For the summer solstice the car park must be pre-booked and sells out, and no public transport runs for the equinoxes at all.

How long do you need at Stonehenge?

Two hours is enough for the exhibition, the shuttle out and a full circuit of the stones. English Heritage also publishes half-day and full-day itineraries. Last admission is two hours before closing and the last ticket is sold at 14:30, or 16:30 in June, July and August.

Do you have to take the shuttle bus to the stones?

No. The shuttle runs every few minutes and takes 5 to 10 minutes, but there is a marked walking route across National Trust land instead — 25 to 40 minutes each way, about 2.6 miles round trip over fields and unmade paths. The shuttle also stops at Fargo Plantation, roughly halfway, if you want to walk only part of it.