English Heritage Family Membership: Month One

“A charity organization, English Heritage cares for over 400 historic buildings, monuments, and sites working to preserve and protect the past while educating its members.”

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Moving to the United Kingdom presented my family with an interesting possibility. Do we invest in a Heritage membership and focus our travels to those sights? Ever the frugal one, I put off investing in any sort of membership out of fear we wouldn’t get our money’s worth.

However, when rumblings of a Stonehenge visit began to surface around the house I started to do some digging.

One year’s worth of the Family Membership cost 105.00 pounds. As of today, that equates to approximately 135 dollars and covers two adults and up to 12 children. Those are steep prices when you’re talking about a family who isn’t sure where their adventures will take them in the next 12 months.

With that price point in mind, I went to the Stonehenge website and researched the entry prices. For my family dynamic, the cost would have been 49.40 pounds (63.88 dollars).

Needless to say, the English Heritage Membership started to look more appealing. Inspiration hit shortly thereafter, and I realized my local grocery store – Tesco – gave me voucher points every time I used my card. A few more minutes on the computer, and I made the delightful discovery that 57 pounds of my membership could be covered through point redemption.

That reduced the cost to 48 pounds (62 dollars). Almost the exact same amount as general admission to Stonehenge.

I signed up right away.

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Membership Buy-In Cost: 48 pounds (62 dollars)

Price of Stonehenge: 49.4 pounds plus 9 pounds for the family audio guides (2 adults and 2 children) totaling 58.4 pounds (75.52 dollars)

Amount Saved through Membership: Ahead 10.4 pounds (13.52 dollars).

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Stonehenge, located in Salisbury at Wiltshire, SP4 7DE, is a neolithic structure built over 4,500 years ago. Its stone circles are one of the world’s oldest mysteries, and one of the most well known places in England. I felt like I couldn’t say I lived in England for four years and not go visit the famous rocks.

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They were fun to see in person, but I’m grateful I paid for the chance with a membership. There wasn’t much more to the stones than a brief history given via the audio guides and a pleasant mile long walk to the sight from the visitor centre.

My advice to families living in the U.K. for a few years: Buy the English Heritage Membership before visiting Stonehenge.

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With a year long membership, I now get the exciting opportunity to plan our day outs around places that we get entry into for free. My goal is to make the most out of this membership (and not just to see how much money I can save, although that’s a big perk!) and hopefully see places around England that I might not have thought to venture to before. I would like to use our membership once a month, with the plan to write an accompanying post. Along the lines of a monthly membership check-in where I highlight one sight at a time, culminating in a small collection of family days out for interested parties.

I can’t wait to see where March takes us.