Driving past Stonehenge last night after dark I wondered why they don't light it up with spotlights? It would look excellent. and there can't be many world heritage sights that are only visible in daylight.

Driving past Stonehenge last night after dark I wondered why they don't light it up with spotlights?  It would look excellent. and there can't be many world heritage sights that are only visible in daylight.

If my memory serves me well the stones were floodlit in the late 70s/early 80s but they were turned off because of the increased road traffic accidents caused by drivers being distracted.   A great shame because they would be magnificent with lighting.

English Heritage have sent a helpful reply to this query -

Thank you for your recent email about illuminating Stonehenge at night. This has been suggested on several occasions and it would indeed look stunning, but there are a number of reasons why Stonehenge is not lit up at night.

1. Stonehenge is in a rural landscape, not in town, and lighting the monument would make the area feel more managed, modern and urban. This is not the way we want to present the monument. Our objective is to provide a more tranquil and rural setting for Stonehenge, and to remove modern intrusions as far as possible.

2. One of the objectives of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site Management Plan is to address the issue of light pollution. This would increase it and is therefore not acceptable.

3. Lighting Stonehenge would attract more attention to the monument at night and may increase the occurrence of trespassing and attempted vandalism. English Heritage has a duty to protect Stonehenge and because of such occurences, we have 24h security guards on site to prevent any damage to the monument.

4. Finally, spotlights did use to be in place some years ago, however due to a road safety issue, English Heritage arranged for these to be removed.