More of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site is now set to be protected by the National Trust after it recently acquired further land, including part of the Stonehenge Avenue, the ancient processional route to the stone circle.

An additional area of land of over 170 hectares is now being brought under the direct care of the Trust, meaning it can now protect forever a site that contains a substantial part of Stonehenge Avenue, the Bronze Age route leading up from the River Avon.

The increase in land under its care in the World Heritage Site marks another important step towards the Trust achieving its long-held ambition to return the land it owns in the Stonehenge Landscape to species-rich chalk grassland.

More than 80 per cent of the UK’s chalk grassland has been lost since the Second World War and around half of what remains today is in Wiltshire. It is a unique landscape, which is home to rich and diverse plant and insect life.

The Trust cares for over 2,000 acres of the landscape surrounding the Stonehenge monument and, over the last twenty years, has carried out one of the largest grassland reversion programmes in Europe.

As a result, it is now home to brown hares, skylarks and Adonis blue butterflies, as well as wildflowers such as sainfoin, cowslip and prickly poppy. Protecting these important habitats for future generations and playing its part to bolster ecological corridors is a priority for the Trust.

Rebecca Burton, Regional Director at the National Trust, said: “We have been working for years to revert more of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site to chalk grassland which, as well as protecting the archaeology, will allow nature to thrive.

"It will mean people will be able to experience a landscape that would have been more familiar to the builders of Stonehenge.”

“Stonehenge is one of the world’s most extraordinary places and we are working hard to restore the landscape.

"The additional land now in our care contains internationally significant archaeological sites - including part of the Stonehenge Avenue, a Bronze Age processional way leading from the River Avon to the stone circle.

"We are pleased that these monuments have now been removed from the Heritage At Risk Register.

In time the Trust hopes to designate more of this land as permissive open access.