Without the Coach Park: Stonehenge and the Wiltshire Downs

Timing matters here more than anything else, and that is the first thing to say. Late morning through to mid-afternoon is when the site fills, so arriving at opening rather than at noon is the difference between seeing a monument and joining a queue. Travel privately and the departure time is yours. We will usually propose leaving London earlier than sounds reasonable. It repays you every time.

Weather comes second. Salisbury Plain sits high and open and is frequently unkind, and the walk out from the visitor centre to the stones has nothing to shelter behind. Your own car parked a few hundred metres off, heating running, coats inside it, nobody waiting on you, turns a cold hour into a comfortable one. That is a practical advantage rather than a romantic one, and it is what clients bring up afterwards.

Most day trips miss the landscape wrapped around the stones. Twenty-five minutes north lies Avebury, a far larger circle with a village sitting inside it and a road running straight through, and there you can walk right up and touch them. Twenty minutes south is Salisbury, whose cathedral holds the tallest spire in Britain along with one of the four surviving copies of Magna Carta. With a car for the day, both drop in easily.

Plainly, then, what we provide here is the vehicle and the chauffeur. Yours holds no guide licence and offers no commentary at all at the site. Admission runs on a timed ticket that you book in advance yourselves, and we are very glad indeed to say which slot suits your departure time best. Should you want the archaeology properly explained, a qualified guide can travel with you on request.