Stonehenge Guided Tours

Eagle-eyed visitors to Stonehenge’s impressive visitor centre will spot the poignant memorial, which is a reminder of the site’s long association with the military, in particular its aviation wing.

The memorial commemorates the site of an early military aviation accident on 5th July 1912, in which Capt Eustace Loraine and his passenger Staff Sgt Richard Wilson became the first members of the newly formed Royal Flying Corps to die while on duty. The memorial stone was moved in 2012 from Airman’s Corner to make way for a roundabout, as part of the access for the new visitor centre.

The area’s connection with aviation took off in the 1880s, when reconnaissance balloons belonging to the Royal Engineers could have been seen ascending over the ancient landscape, alarming locals and livestock. From 1897 the War Office started buying up large tracts of land around Stonehenge. They had been using Salisbury Plain for…