MEDIA REPORTS SUMMER SOLSTICE 2004 ...Back to Home Page

Jun 24 Salisbury Journal Some photos 2004
Devizes Gazette and Herald

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Salisbury Journal Thursday June 24 2004 p1

INSIDE TODAY
21,000 greet solstice at Stonehenge: p4 PIC1

p4

Crowd greets solstice dawn
by Anne Morris

AS the sun finally made its appearance at 5.15 on Monday morning, at the beginning of the longest day of the year, cheers broke out among the assorted crowd of about 21,000 people gathered at Stonehenge.
It was the fifth consecutive year that English Heritage had provided managed open access to the World Heritage site for the summer solstice.
Sadly, the sun was shrouded in mist at its due time of 04.58 BST, missing its slot between the gap of the two large standing stones aligned with the heel stone.
Not even the druids' horns could summon its presence and, after quickly retreating behind cloud after its first, brief appearance, it was not until 5.30am that the ancient stones were fully bathed in glorious sunlight.
Although there were fewer visitors than last year's record figure of 30,000, the chilly air did not deter anyone present from celebrating the dawn, some in their own special way - dancing, chanting, praying, saluting the sun with yoga and tai chi - while others simply enjoyed being near the stones.
White witch Georgina Blything, of Haverfordwest, had travelled to Stonehenge with her sister, Rose.
Formerly from Tidworth, Georgina is a regular at the summer solstice.
"Last year, I performed a wedding, but this year I have come to perform a reiki achievement with the stones," she said.
For Ruth Collins, of Portsmouth, it was her first visit to both Stonehenge and the solstice, and she said it was "an absolutely wonderful, completely fantastic, mind-blowing experience".
Druid leader `King' Arthur Pendragon formed a circle with fellow druids by the heel stone, gathering anyone who wanted to join in the druid vow to "swear by peace and love to stand, heart-to-heart and hand-to-hand".
`King' Arthur called for the uniting of the Celtic and English dragons, before the sun finally made its appearance.
Most people were happy simply to wander around the outside of the stones, some sporting body paint and wearing wreaths, others just sitting and soaking up the atmosphere, or playing a constant drumbeat that could be heard all over the site.
Those who could penetrate the inner circle would have enjoyed a real party atmosphere with the revellers.
Some 150 police were on duty at the solstice and, although a low profile was maintained, there were 17 arrests for climbing on the stones and other offences relating to public order.
A spokesperson for Salisbury Police said: "We were pleased with the manner in which the majority of people who attended the celebration conducted themselves.
"They aimed to enjoy themselves and we were pleased that plans between English Heritage the National Trust, ourselves and other religious groups were pulled off for the fifth consecutive year."
English Heritage did a good job of presiding over the smooth running of the event, with strict conditions of entry helping to ensure that druids, pilgrims, partygoers, students and an assortment of other people enjoyed a happy and peaceful time.

Druid leader Arthur Pendragon blesses some flowers at the summer solstice. DA5819P14 PIC1

A druid tries to summon the sun from out of the mist. DA5819P09 PIC2

Tawny owl Merlin keeps a watch on proceedings. DA5819P16 PIC3

The centre of the circle is packed with revellers. DA5819P17 PIC4

Witches Georgina Blything and her sister, Rose, at the solstice. DA5819P01 PIC5

Pictures by David Smith

Solstice reveller charged

A SECURITY officer was punched in the face by a summer solstice reveller after trying to stop him spraying the jackets worn by police officers and security guards with paint. It is also believed the man sprayed a mis-spelt obscenity on the ground near the monument but when the security guard approached him, the man hit him in the face. The man was arrested and later found to be in possession of a small quantlty of cocaine. He was charged with crinunal damage, assault and being in possession of a class A drug.

Journal 275th Anniversary Supplement, p10(s)

History reported in different styles

IT took events of great importance to push the established order off the front page. Even then, what would strike the modern reader most would be the lack of illustration and banner headline. Contrast the Swing Riots of 1830 (below right) with latter day reports of that other period of social disorder, the now notorious Battle of the Beanfield in 1985.
The front page of November 29, 1830, carried a proclamation by the King "strictly commanding all Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Under Sheriffs, and all other Civil Officers whatsoever, in the counties of Wilts, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hants and Berks, that they do use their utmost endeavours to discover, apprehend, and bring to justice the persons concerned in the riotous proceedings above-mentioned".
Rewards for information and convictions were offered and a sincere well-wisher offered the following advice: "Labourers - Beware of Men who are going about the Country to make you do what you will soon be sorry for. The times are bad but BURNING CORN WILL NOT GIVE YOU BREAD."
His warning went unheeded - the rioters descended on Salisbury and much of the back page was devoted to an account of events at Bishop Down Farm where a threshing machine was destroyed and the rioters "were proceeding, armed with bludgeons, iron bars, and portions of the machinery they had broken to pieces, towards this city."
The then editor of the Journal William Bird Brodie was in charge of the Special Constables with several members of the Salisbury Philharmonic Society among their number.
It was noted elsewhere that the second meeting of this society had had to be cancelled "on the 25th inst as advertised, in consequence of many of the members having been engaged as Special Constables".
The Yeomanry Calvary took up position in front of the Council Chamber where "the pistol of one of the privates of the troop went off by accident, and the contents of it were unfortunately lodged in the body of Sergeant Mackrell".
Further disturbances were reported at West Park where Mr Coote and his domestic staff saw off the rioters and at Pythouse where Hindon Troop "arrived too late to save Benett's threshing machine" but captured 25 of the miscreants who were "brought in carts...to Fisherton gaol."
So much unrest obviously proved too hot a potato for one Thomas Brown, who was elected mayor of the city at a Common Council and promptly "paid a fine to be excused from serving the office".
A little over 150 years later it was hippies not agricultural workers who were causing problems when years of illegal free pop festivals at Stonehenge erupted in violence in June 1985.
Festival Fury shrieked the Journal's front page story as the hippie Peace Convoy and police clashed head on, ending in close to 400 arrests.
"Police...moved in as the buses and vans started careering round the field and tried to retreat into an adjoining bean field," ran the report, accompanied by pictures of hippies being led away by police and officers wielding riot shields.

The 1985 Journal front page of the civil unrest at the Battle of the Beanfiefd compared with (right) the sombre front page reporting of the Swing Riots in 1830. PIC1

p18(s)

The way we were

Few photographs appeared in The Journal before the 1950s but more recently, nostalgic features have allowed us to look back at how things used to be...

A protest against the sale of Stonehenge in the early 1900s. PIC1

Devizes Gazette and Herald Thursday June 24 2004

Solstice of fire

THE summer solstice celebrations at Avebury at dawn on Monday were muted compared with recent years.
Only a fraction of the number which packed in during the last few years were present to see the day break on Monday.
Disappointingly for the few hundred who assembled in the 4,000-year-old stone rings they did not see the sun rise.
Dawn was marred by mist instead of the glorious sunrise the revellers had been hoping for.
Druid Terry Dobney who calls himself the Keeper of The Stones said less than 200 people joined in the ritual joining of hands in a large circle to mark the solstice daybreak.
Mr Dobney said drummers played all through the night from sunset to sunrise. He said: "We drank and we sang and we chattered."
In contrast, Stonehenge rang to the sound of jungle drums and jazz saxophone as thousands thronged the monument to mark the solstice.
About 21,000 people opted to banish Monday morning blues and brave the chilly temperatures to catch a glimpse of the sun rising between the ancient stones.
With druids and the occasional punk mingling happily with tourists and students, the atmosphere was a far cry from the angry scenes between police and revellers a decade ago.
By dawn Wiltshire Police had made only a handful of arrests, all for public order offences.
However, Rob Mimmack, the Avebury site manager said in the past two summer solstices had occurred at the weekend when people did not have to go to work the next day.
Mr Mimmack said: "Personally I think the drop in numbers was to do with the fact that it was Sunday night into Monday morning and a lot of people that would have attended at a weekend had to go to work."
Police said the celebrations at Avebury were noisy but trouble free and they made no arrests.
Another reason for the drop in numbers attending this year was a police clampdown on illegal parking.
Hundreds of police no-parking cones lined the main Swindon-Devizes road through the village and for a mile on either side.
Notices made it clear that any cars parked illegally or causing obstruction in field gateways would be towed away and the owners would have to pay a recovery fee.
Last year the police called in breakdown firms to remove dozens of cars parked along the main road which were causing obstruction.
Police allowed people to park along the road leading from Avebury to West Kennett and operated a one-way system for traffic.
Since last year parking charges have been introduced in the main car park at Avebury but the National Trust did not enforce them over the weekend when many travellers camped in the car park.
Mr Mimmack said the campers were allowed to stay until noon on Monday before being moved on.
At Stonehenge the focus of the activity before dawn was on an impromptu open-air dance next to the famous Heal Stone, the marker for sunrise on summer solstice.
Druid leader King Arthur Pendragon presided over the festivities standing amid a ring of flaming torches overshadowed by a pair of giant horns, themselves lit by burning branches.
He said: "The fire symbolically welcomes the sun for the longest day of the year, part of the seasonal wheel which we as druids and pagans celebrate. It's not a day in church, it's a celebration."
PIC1

The Scotsman Wed 23 June, 2003

Stonehenge Reveller 'Dies of Drink and Drugs'

By John Bingham, PA News

A 40-year-old man died of a suspected drink and drugs overdose after spending midsummer night with new age revellers at Stonehenge, it emerged today.
The man, who has not been named, had watched the sun rise over the ancient stone circle with friends on the morning of June 21, just hours before his death, Wiltshire Police confirmed.
The group of around four people left the site, which this year attracted an estimated 21,000 visitors for the summer solstice, in the early afternoon and headed for the nearby ancient stone circle of Avebury, another popular spot on midsummer night.
At 9pm that evening police and an air ambulance were called to a camper van on the A4 at Avebury where the man had spent some time.Acting detective sergeant Marcus Tawn said: "Officers from Kennet CID are currently investigating the possibility that controlled drugs and alcohol may have been a contributory factor in the death."
The coroner�s office has been informed and a post-mortem examination was due to be carried out.
Thousands of spectators head every year for the ancient monuments at Stonehenge and Avebury, both World Heritage Sites, to watch the spectacle of the sun rising.
The exact reason for Stonehenge�s construction remains shrouded in mystery but its alignment to the sun has led many to believe it was a temple or prehistoric astronomical observatory.
Tourists are normally kept back from the stones on a roped-off path but in recent years access to the circle has been allowed for the night of the summer solstice.

CBC News Wed June 23, 2004

More than 20,000 revellers gather at Stonehenge for summer solstice

STONEHENGE, England (AP) - More than 20,000 partygoers, New Age followers and self-styled druids gathered at this ancient stone circle Monday to welcome the summer solstice, the longest day in the northern hemisphere year.
The revellers braved cool, wet weather to spend the night at the 4,000-year-old stone circle and watch the sun rise at 4:58 a.m. Clouds obscured it at first, but the crowd cheered as the sun broke through at about 6:15 a.m.
To the music of drums and jazz saxophone, many danced among the stones and others raised flaming torches and wooden staffs.
"The fire symbolically welcomes the sun for the longest day of the year, part of the seasonal wheel which we as druids and pagans celebrate," said a man calling himself King Arthur Pendragon. "It's not a day in church for us, it's a celebration."
English Heritage, which runs Stonehenge, estimated the crowd at 21,000.
Last year - when the solstice fell on a weekend - about 30,000 people celebrated at the site, banging drums, blowing whistles and chanting to welcome the longest day.
The stones, 130 kilometres southwest of London, were opened to the public for the summer solstice in 2000, after being closed following violence between police and revellers in 1985.
English Heritage said amplified music, pets, glass bottles and fireworks were banned, as was climbing onto the stones themselves.
"Summer solstice is a special time which means different things to different people," said the group's chief executive, Simon Thurley. "We work closely with many agencies and people from all sectors of the community to ensure that everyone who comes is able to enjoy the occasion safely and peacefully."
Police said they arrested a handful of people for public order offences.
Stonehenge - the remnants of the last in a sequence of circular monuments built between 3000 BC and 1600 BC - is one of Britain's most popular tourist attractions and a spiritual home for thousands of druids and mystics. It has become a traditional gathering place at the solstice.
Exactly how and why Stonehenge was built remains a mystery. Some experts believe it is aligned with the sun simply because its builders came from a sun-worshipping culture, while others believe the site was part of a huge astronomical calendar.

© The Canadian Press, 2004

The Telegraph Wed 23 June, 2004

Another view: by Oliver Pritchett

Stonehenge, second home for the Dibties of Preseli

I am terribly excited about the news this week that archaeologists have discovered the grave of Britons who built Stonehenge and dragged those bluestones all the way from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire. Tests on the tooth enamel from Bronze Age skeletons found near the site show that they almost certainly came from west Wales originally.
At last, this confirms my theory that Stonehenge was actually a second home. Stressed out Pembrokeshire Bronze Age executives moved there to get a better quality of life and room for the kids to mess about on Salisbury Plain. These prosperous ancient Britons, known as "Dibties" - dual incomes, bronze tools - moved in with their smart four-ton bluestones and "did up" the simple earthworks which had been built there in the Neolithic period.
It was probably just by chance that a Pembrokeshire family came across the site while touring Wiltshire. When they got back home they would discuss it with other families in their community while seated round a fire eating antelope which had been burnt in an entirely new way. Then they would take everybody by surprise by announcing: "We've decided to up bluestones and move to Wiltshire."
I guess their companions were aghast. "You can't go and live in the middle of nowhere," they said. "You will miss out on everything. Wonderful things are happening in bronze at the moment and there has never been a more exciting time to be in the implements business. And how are you going to keep up with our primitive culture?"
"It's a good place to bring up the kids," they replied.
"There will be nowhere to go out and eat antelope burnt in interesting ways," their friends warned.
The whole community would have gathered to wave them off as they loaded their four-ton bluestone on to rollers and prepared to haul it the 156 miles to their new life. "Your best bet is to make for Milford Haven," an elder advised, "then put it on a boat to take it along the coast before dragging it across the rugged terrain at the other end. You'll take several months off your journey that way." Someone gave them a boar's tusk as a leaving present.
Of course the Dibtie family kept their old place in the Preseli Hills and came back from time to time to report on their progress at Stonehenge. They told how they had acquired a dwelling which was wonderfully rude and genuinely late Neolithic. They explained how a lovely local chap came in every day to do the rudimentary husbandry for them and his wife helped around the dwelling, shattering far too many of the earthenware cookery vessels, but, never mind, it couldn't be helped.
The local Neolithies, as they called them, were really awfully sweet and seemed to have accepted them completely. Sometimes they missed the nights out in the Preseli Hills, but mostly they felt so much better now they were getting back to their primitive roots. Life had improved now there were a couple of places in the area where you could get very nice decorative bronze brooches.
Soon the terrain between Pembrokeshire and Stonehenge was clogged with four-ton bluestones on rollers and sledges as more and more Dibties opted for the good life. They certainly brought benefits to the area, arranging the bluestones in a lovely inner ring and discouraging nearby developments which would impair the charm of the place. At night you could catch the aroma of antelope being burnt in all sorts of interesting ways.
They pointed out to each other the fascinating way the rising sun cast its rays on the stones and they agreed that, as entertainment, the goat sacrificing was a good laugh.
Some of the locals were not too happy. They resented the way the place had been cluttered up with these great Welsh boulders and they longed for the old days when it was just earthworks. These stuck-up Bronze Age folk wouldn't look so smug when they were overtaken by the Iron Age, and, for some, this couldn't come too soon. "Druids would be too good for the likes of them," they would mutter among themselves.
Meanwhile, for the Dibties, burials were the new big thing. There was great competition to be buried with the most authentic items of folk craft. I notice that in the recent discoveries the skeletons were found with pots, flint tools and arrowheads, a bone toggle and a boar's tusk. It's the old story: outsiders move into a place and soon they take over all the best arrowheads, leaving the locals with nothing but crude artefacts.

Cartoon: PIC1

Guardian Tues June 22 2004 p4

Sun arise...Happy crowds at Stonehenge for summer solstice

The ancient stones of Stonehenge rang to the sound of jungle drums and jazz saxophone yesterday as thousands thronged the monument to mark the summer solstice.
About 21,000 people braved the chilly temperatures to catch a glimpse of the sun rising between the standing stones.
With druids and the occasional punk mingling happily with tourists and students, the atmosphere was a far cry from the angry scenes a decade ago, before the reclassification of cannabis. By dawn Wiltshire police had made only a "handful" of arrests, all for public order offences.
Inside the ring itself, thousands packed tightly around groups of drummers and other musicians while some took the opportunity to sprawl on the stones normally beyond public reach.
But the focus of the activity before dawn was on an impromptu open-air dance next to the Heal Stone, the marker for sunrise on summer solstice.
Druid leader "King Arthur Pendragon" presided over festivities, standing amid flaming torches overshadowed by a pair of giant horns, themselves lit by burning branches. Press Association

Revellers gather around Stonehenge to await the rising of
the sun that marked the summer solstice yesterday PIC1

Picture: Martin Godwin

The Times Tues June 22 2004 p11

Sun arrives late for solstice among the stoned of Stonehenge
By Simon de Bruxelles

MORE than 20,000 people braved heavy rain and clouds of cannabis smoke to celebrate the summer solstice at Stonehenge yesterday. The ancient monument rang to the sounds of drumming and a saxophone as the Sun rose unseen above the Heel Stone at 4.58am.
Druids, pagans, punks and New Age travellers mingled with the merely curious, despite the unfortunate weather. It was the first gathering at Stonehenge since the reclassification of cannabis and police were concentrating their attention on those suspected of possession with intent to supply rather than just smoking it. The ceremonies were led by the self-styled Druid leader King Arthur Pendragon, who lit a fire to mark the imminent arrival of dawn.
"The fire welcomes the Sun for the longest day of the year, part of the seasonal wheel which we as Druids and pagans celebrate," he said. "At the end of the day, this living temple we call Stonehenge belongs to all of us. We all have a right to come here and celebrate the solstice."
Despite clear skies throughout the night, a ring of low cloud threatened to blot out the spectacle of the Sun rising in line with the stones as dawn approached.
To a chorus of applause from the crowds, it finally appeared above the cloud at 6.15am, a late but welcome appearance. Peter Carson, who manages Stonehenge on behalf of English Heritage, said: "It's wonderful. We are delighted that people have been able to come here and enjoy the solstice in a safe and peaceful manner.

Comment: Cartoon PIC1

Financial Times Tues June 22 2004 p5

NATIONAL NEWS:

Sun up: the midsummer sun rises over the megalithic monument of Stonehenge yesterday. About 21,000 people gathered at the ancient site on Salisbury Plain to witness the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. PIC1
Picture: Getty Images

The Independent Tues June 22 2004 p8

Peaceful solstice is celebrated at Stonehenge
By John Bingham

Stonehenge rang to the sound of jungle drums and jazz saxophone yesterday as thousands thronged the monument to mark the summer solstice.
About 21,000 braved chilly temperatures see the sun rising between the stones. Wiltshire Police made a "handful" of arrests for public order offences.
The Druid leader "King Arthur Pendragon" presided, standing amid a ring of torches overshadowed by a pair of giant horns, lit by burning branches. He said: "The fire symbolically welcomes the sun for the longest day of the year, part of the seasonal wheel which we as druids and pagans celebrate."
Peter Carson, English Heritage's head of Stonehenge, said: "We are delighted people have been able to enjoy the solstice in a safe and peaceful manner."

Dawn at Stonehenge on the longest day of the year.
The sun broke through the clouds at about 6.15am PIC1
Picture: Tom Pilston

Telegraph Tues June 22 2004 p19

Comment:

Give back Stonehenge

SIR - It has now been proved that Stonehenge was built by our Welsh ancestors from the same area of our country as the blue stones themselves (report, June 21). Since the Stone of Destiny was returned to Scotland a few years since, and it is clearly only a matter of time until the Elgin Marbles are returned to Greece, may I express a request that Stonehenge be returned to Wales? Let me, therefore, be the first to stake an official claim on behalf of my fellow druids, bards, ovates and the rest of my Welsh compatriots.
Robyn Lewis Archdruid of Wales Pwllheli, Gwynedd

SIR - Stonehenge is probably an early example of civil engineering in soft ground where pile-driving was employed and later abandoned. Before these deeply inserted uprights had become exposed by soil erosion, later attempts by the Romans to use them as foundations may have been frustrated by Senate planning restraints. Born in Amesbury 70 years ago, I seem to remember the initial letters of a carved inscription, now long worn away, Dedicatio Restrictum Ubique Institutum Desistus, now the source of much reverence by later worshippers.
Robert Vincent Wildhern, Hants

BBC News online Tues June 22 2004

The archdruid of Wales has called for England's most famous landmark to be returned to Wales.
This week experts said remains found near Stonehenge were almost certainly among those who helped build it.
Tests on teeth found in a 4,300-year-old grave suggest the prehistoric workmen were Welsh.
That and the fact that the stones come from west Wales, has prompted Robyn Lewis - the ceremonial leader of the Gorsedd of Bards - to put pen to paper.
In a letter in the Daily Telegraph, Dr Lewis pointed out the significance of the discovery.
And, he asked : "Since the Stone of Destiny was returned to Scotland a few years since, and it is clearly only a matter of time until the Elgin Marbles are returned to Greece, may I express a request that Stonehenge be returned to Wales?"

Archdruid wants Stonehenge back PIC1

Bluestone from Pembrokeshire was used at Stonehenge PIC2

Seattle Post Mon 21 Jun 2004

Thousands witness solstice

Revelers gather for summer solstice

STONEHENGE, England -- More than 20,000 New Age followers, self-styled druids and other revelers celebrated the summer solstice at this ancient stone circle Monday, dancing to drums and holding aloft flaming torches.
After a cool, wet night, the crowd cheered as the sun broke through cloudy skies more than a hour after dawn on the northern hemisphere's longest day.
"The fire symbolically welcomes the sun for the longest day of the year, part of the seasonal wheel which we as druids and pagans celebrate," said a man calling himself King Arthur Pendragon. "It's not a day in church for us, it's a celebration."
English Heritage, which runs Stonehenge, estimated the crowd at 21,000. Police said they arrested a few participants for public order offenses.
Stonehenge - the remnants of the last in a sequence of circular monuments built between 3000 B.C. and 1600 B.C. - is one of Britain's most popular tourist attractions and a spiritual home for thousands of self-styled druids and mystics.
The stones, 80 miles southwest of London, reopened to the public for the summer solstice in 2000, after being closed following violence between police and revelers in 1985.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A reveller faces the sunrise during the Summer Solstice ceremonies at Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England, Monday June 21, 2004. The stone circle at Stonehenge is believed to be at least 4,500 years old. PIC1
(AP Photo/John D McHugh)

From another user of the AP story, The Boston Herald:

Druids performing pagan rituals as part of PIC2
the summer solstice ceremonies at Stonehenge (AP)

Star Tribune (Minneapolis) Mon June 21 2004

Thousands gather round Stonehenge for solstice

STONEHENGE, ENGLAND -- More than 20,000 New Age followers, self-styled druids and other revelers celebrated the summer solstice at this ancient stone circle Monday, dancing to drums and holding aloft torches.
English Heritage, which runs Stonehenge, estimated the crowd at 21,000. Police said they arrested a few participants for public order offenses.
Stonehenge -- the remnants of the last in a sequence of circular monuments built between 3000 B.C. and 1600 B.C. -- is one of Britain's most popular tourist attractions and a spiritual home for thousands of mystics.
The stones reopened to the public for the summer solstice in 2000, after being closed because of violence between police and revelers in 1985.
Associated Press

The Scotsman online Mon June 21 2004

Here Comes the SUN...STONEHENGE Devotees Mark Summer Solstice

By John Bingham, PA News

The ancient arches of Stonehenge rang to the sound of jungle drums and jazz saxophone today as thousands thronged the monument to mark the summer solstice.
About 21,000 people opted to banish Monday morning blues and brave the chilly temperatures to catch a glimpse of the sun rising between the ancient stones.
With druids and the occasional punk mingling happily with tourists and students, the atmosphere was a far cry from the angry scenes between police and revellers a decade ago.
By dawn Wiltshire Police had made only a "handful" of arrests, all for public order offences.
And with the first solstice since the reclassification of cannabis, a police spokesman said officers were maintaining a policy in accordance with the law, but concentrating resources on those suspected of possession with intent to supply.
Inside the ring itself, thousands packed tightly around groups of drummers and other musicians while some took the opportunity to sprawl on the ancient stones normally beyond public reach.
But the focus of the activity before dawn was on an impromptu open-air dance next to the famous Heal Stone, the marker for sunrise on summer solstice.
Druid leader "King Arthur Pendragon" presided over the festivities standing amid a ring of flaming torches overshadowed by a pair of giant horns, themselves lit by burning branches.
While the costumes harked back to ancient Britons, the music ranged from jungle to jazz.
And while some held flaming torches and wooden staffs aloft, others waved digital cameras and hand-rolled cigarettes.
"King Arthur", who adopted the name in 1986 to denote his position as "Battle Chieftain of the Council of British Druids", said the festivities marked the imminent arrival of dawn.
He said: "The fire symbolically welcomes the sun for the longest day of the year, part of the seasonal wheel which we as druids and pagans celebrate."
"It�s not a day in church for us, it�s a celebration, we don�t sit in pews."

Sydney Morning Herald Mon June 21 2004

Thousands gather at Stonehenge for summer solstice

Thousands of druids, revellers and the simply curious witnessed a cloud-obscured sunrise at Stonehenge today during an annual pilgrimage to the site to celebrate the northern hemisphere's summer solstice, the longest day of the year.
Wiltshire police said 19,000 people converged on the ancient circle of 20-tonne stones on Salisbury Plain in southern England, where they partied through the night until the sun rose over the Heel Stone just before 4am.
A police spokesman said 11 people were arrested, mostly for minor drink and drug offences.
Druids, a pagan religious order dating back to Celtic Britain, are drawn to Stonehenge on the longest day of the year, about 160km west of London, because they believe the stones are a centre of spiritualism.
Stripping away some of the mystery surrounding the site, British newspapers reported today that archaeologists have unearthed 4,000-year-old skeletons of men who helped transport the massive stones from west Wales.
"For the first time we have found the mortal remains of one of the families who were almost certainly involved in this monumental task," said Andrew Fitzpatrick of Wessex Archaeology.
The site is open to the public throughout the year but the solstice allows revellers a rare opportunity to touch the massive stones and walk among them.
This year's crowd numbers were down from a record 28,000 who braved chilly temperatures at the site last year.
Scholars say the circle was built between 3000 and 1600 BC as a temple, burial ground, astronomical calendar or for a variety of spiritual and earthly purposes.
Reuters

Pictures from reuters.com: PIC1 PIC2

and from reuters uk (but it is an old library picture) PIC3

from The Independent online, South Africa, which used the Reuters story and AFP pictures:

Ancient ritual: The sun rises over Stonehenge where thousands
of people greeted the northern hemisphere's summer solstice. PIC4
Photo: AFP

Naked greeting: A man celebrates the longest day of the year PIC5
in the northern hemisphere in his birthday suit. Photo: AFP

The Canadian Press Mon June 21 2004

More than 20,000 revellers gather at Stonehenge for summer solstice

WBEX radio, Cincinnati Mon June 21 2004

Men Who Delivered Stonehenge Found

United Press International

Archaeologists in England have uncovered the remains of three brothers who helped deliver the giant stones of Stonehenge 4,300 years ago.
The find was made in Wiltshire, several miles from the monument as excavators were digging a trench for a water pipe, The Times of London reported Monday.
They uncovered a single grave containing the bones of three adults, a teenager and three young children. Chemical analysis of minerals in their teeth established that the men came from the Preselis in western Wales, 150 miles from their last resting place.
The bones were in varying states of preservation but the shape of the skulls shows they were related. One male, who died between the ages of 30 and 45, had at some point suffered a badly broken leg, leading to speculation he might have been injured while moving the heavy stones. The three children were buried near his head and may have been his. One of them, who died between the ages of 2 and 4, had been cremated. The other two were between 5 and 7 years of age.
Meanwhile, some 21,000 people gathered at Stonehenge at 4:38 a.m. local time Monday to witness the summer solstice sunrise between the monument's tallest stones, the BBC said.
Photo Copyright Ian Waldie / Getty Images PIC1

CBBC News Mon June 21 2004

Thousands celebrate at Stonehenge

Around 21,000 revellers have watched the sun come up at the ancient site Stonehenge to celebrate the longest day of the year - the summer solstice.
The 5,000-year-old stone circle was open to the public. In previous years, it has remained closed because of fear of damage to the stones.
The reason for Stonehenge has puzzled historians for centuries, but some think it was a temple to the sun.
People danced and music was played as the sun rose at around 5am on Monday.
Around 150 police attended the event, but it was largely trouble-free.
There were a small number of arrests after people started climbing on the stones and misbehaving.
Disturbance
Back in 1985, there was a huge disturbance at the event that ended with 12 people having to go to hospital.

The Guardian online Mon June 21 2004

Stonehenge builders identified
George Wright and agencies

As thousands of people, from English druids to foreign tourists, gathered today at Stonehenge for the summer solstice, archaeologists unveiled research that appears to shed new light on the society that built the ancient monument.
Tests on the remains of seven 4,500-year-old skeletons found on Salisbury Plain last year show they almost certainly belonged to the "band of brothers" that helped erect Stonehenge.
Archaeologists have concluded that the men, whose graves were discovered by workmen digging trenches for a housing development at Boscombe, in Wiltshire, were from south-west Wales, where Stonehenge's bluestones came from.
Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology, said: "In medieval times, people believed that the stones could only have been brought to Stonehenge by Merlin the wizard. For the first time we have found the mortal remains of one of the families who were almost certainly involved in this monumental task."
Scientists say the bones of the three children, a teenager and three men - named the Boscombe Bowmen because of the flint arrowheads found in the graves - are so similar that they must have been related.
Tests by scientists of the British Geological Survey (BSG) on the enamel in the Bowmen's teeth showed they grew up in a place where the rocks were highly radioactive: either in the Lake District or Wales. The tests also show that the men migrated between the ages of three and 13.
Dr Jane Evans of the BSG said: "This provides a remarkable picture of prehistoric migration."
Last year, similar tests were conducted on the remains of the Amesbury Archer, a man who was given the richest burial of the age in Europe and who was described as the King of Stonehenge.
He was found to be the earliest known metalworking man in Britain, and his grave contained the earliest gold objects discovered in Britain. Tests on his teeth showed that he came from central Europe.
Dr Fitzpatrick said: "The Boscombe Bowmen, a band of brothers, must almost certainly be linked with the bringing of the bluestones to Stonehenge. With the discovery that the Amesbury Archer came from central Europe, these finds are casting the first light on an extraordinary picture at the dawn of the metal age.
"Through the mists of time, we can start to see the very people who brought the building blocks of the greatest temple of its age. We can also glimpse the important people who were associated with that temple to the gods of the sun and the moon. It is an epic story."
Their grave, which dates to the beginning of the Bronze Age - about 2,300 BC - was found at Boscombe Down, near Stonehenge.
Many of the bluestones at Stonehenge were brought from Wales; the huge sarsen stones forming the familiar inner circle were brought from Marlborough Downs, 19 miles north of the site.
Pots found in the Bowmen's graves are very similar to those found in the Amesbury Archer's grave and also date from the period when Stonehenge was created. The finds will be on display in Salisbury museum from Saturday July 3.
Meanwhile, the sound of jungle drums and jazz saxophone reverberated around the site today as an estimated 21,000 people marked the summer solstice, braving chilly temperatures to catch a glimpse of the sun rising between the ancient stones.
With druids and the occasional punk mingling happily with tourists and students, the atmosphere was a far cry from the clashes between police and revellers that often marred the event in the 1980s and 90s. By dawn Wiltshire Police had made only a "handful" of arrests, all for public order offences.
And with the first solstice since the reclassification of cannabis, a police spokesman said officers were maintaining a policy in accordance with the law but concentrating resources on those suspected of possession with intent to supply.
Inside the ring itself, thousands of people packed tightly around groups of drummers and other musicians while some took the opportunity to sprawl on the ancient stones, which are normally beyond public reach.
The focus of the activity before dawn was on an impromptu dance next to the famous Heal Stone, the marker for sunrise on summer solstice.
The druid leader, King Arthur Pendragon, presided over the festivities, standing amid a ring of flaming torches.
King Arthur, who adopted the name in 1986 to denote his position as Battle Chieftain of the Council of British Druids, said the festivities marked the arrival of dawn.
He said: "The fire symbolically welcomes the sun for the longest day of the year, part of the seasonal wheel which we, as druids and pagans, celebrate. It's not a day in church for us: it's a celebration. We don't sit in pews.
"At the end of the day this living temple that we call Stonehenge belongs to all of us. We all have a right to come here and celebrate the solstice," he said.
For others it was simply a spectacle. Cara Whitehorn, 32, from Wiltshire said: "This is my first time. It's my birthday, and I've always wanted to come here on my birthday."
There were fears that the solstice would be marred by bad weather but the sun finally broke through the clouds at 6.15am to a chorus of applause from the crowds.
Peter Carson, English Heritage's head of Stonehenge, said the event was a success. He said: "It's wonderful. We are delighted at the fact that people have been able to come here and enjoy the solstice in a safe and peaceful manner."

Summer solstice
Let our web guide shine light on this, the longest day of the year
Matt Biggs

1. The summer solstice is one of those things that have been around for a very long time. It's all to do with the Earth's yearly jaunt around the sun and the fact that the planet presents itself to our local star at an angle of 23.5 degrees, so at the summer solstice the north pole is at its closest to the sun. Cue the shortest night of the year, a glut of glorious daylight and a sudden awareness that it is all downhill from here - next stop is the winter solstice when the opposite is true and darkness prevails.

2. Solstice is the day on which the "sun stands still". Not to be confused with the 1950s cult SF film The Day the Earth Stood Still, which presents altogether different issues. But if you are into the Bible, you should have your arguments against all this since-the-beginning-of-time hokum pretty much sown up - Joshua 10:7-14 is where it's at.

3. Down on the farm the summer solstice traditionally represents the start of the season, a time to kick back after the spring planting and wallow in the expectation of bountiful harvests. On the beaches of Bournemouth and Blackpool, a soggy solstice can leave people wondering whether even spring has arrived yet. The planet takes time to warm up, which is why we traditionally consider the height of summer to be some time during July or August - and why the shock of autumn is all the greater.

4. In Celtic cultures, the June solstice represented midsummer, the midpoint between the start of the Gaelic summer on May 1 and the onset of autumn on August 1. Weird - which might explain why William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream is set at this time of year.

5. Pilgrims inspired by Buddhism have been travelling from Reading along the 5,000-year-old Ridgeway path, 'through the sacred landscape of Britain', to join the solstice celebrations at Stonehenge. The henge (stone circle) of henges is a magnet for people of Pagan faiths and those seeking a true solstice dawn experience. Archaeologists revealed research only today showing that seven skeletons discovered at the site last year are almost certainly those of a family group who helped to erect Stonehenge.

6. Sport features heavily around this summer's solstice, and the organisers of the Euro 2004 football tournament are marking the occasion with an England v Croatia showdown in Portugal. Tennis starts today at Wimbledon, while the Athens Olympics will sign off summer in August.

7. European marriage traditions owe much to the period around the summer solstice. Ancient cultures once believed that the sexual union of the gods took place in May. Thoughts of marriage would therefore respectfully be held over until the first (or only) full moon in June, also the best time to harvest the honey used in making celebratory mead. That is why so many people today get married in June. And then go away on honeymoon.

8. Gardeners love the summer solstice as it means they can revel in the explosion of growth and grub about in the borders until bedtime. The Midsummer Garden Celebration, ranging from June 12 to 27 at Groombridge Place in the south-east of England, is blooming with horticultural ideas. But while the sun may be all-conquering at this time of year, the moon has a trump card. Enter the world of moon gardening - where the signs of the zodiac play an integral part in the crop cycle, where Aries is barren and dry and Libra semi-fruitful and moist. By following a lunar calendar you, too, can live by the moon. The ancient Chinese, Greeks and Romans all swore by it, and only recently have we shown that it actually works.

9. For some people, extra daylight provides the perfect opportunity to take stock, re-assess their lives and go on a retreat. A week of yoga and walking in the Cévennes Mountains of France can't be a bad way to refocus.

10. And if you didn't make it to Stonehenge at 3am this morning, have your own personal solstice by brewing up some solstice mead, baking dandelion muffins and, when it finally gets dark, putting on a DVD of Wicker Man. You'll never know the difference.

Gulf Daily News, Bahrain Mon June 21 2004 Vol XXVII NO. 93

Solstice holds key to Saar secret

WHILE thousands flock to celebrate the Summer Solstice in Europe today, archaeologist Nabiel Al Shaikh expects to once again take up a lone vigil at the site of Bahrain's Saar settlement.
Mr Al Shaikh is convinced the event holds the key to one of the historic landmark's strangest secrets.
A temple at the 4,000-year-old Dilmun settlement has an odd triangular corner, which to this day remains unexplained.
However, Mr Al Shaikh claims it was once an astronomical device used by priests to measure the position of the sun.
He thinks it was built so that on the Summer Solstice - the first day of summer when the sun reaches its northernmost point - the sun would set directly over the corner of the temple.
This would allow astronomers inside the temple to calculate the time of year by the position of the sun.
If Mr Al Shaikh's theory is true, it would prove that the Dilmun calendar 4,000 years ago was one of the first to be based on the movement of the sun.
It could also mean that the Dilmun new year started on the Summer Solstice, which always falls on June 21.
Mr Al Shaikh, a photographer and archaeologist at Dammam Regional Museum, in Saudi Arabia, has returned to the settlement on this day every year for the past eight years to watch the sun go down over the temple.
However, his enthusiasm for the theory is yet to catch on.
"I have tried to get more publicity and more people to come and see this phenomenon," he said.
"In the UK, 25,000 people watch the sun set over Stonehenge on the summer solstice, which only happens once a year.
"People should go and see it while they still can because the area is being developed.
"Soon you will not see the sunset (from the temple) because of the new buildings."
One reason why Mr Al Shaikh's theory has not been officially accepted - and therefore why more people are not expected to join him today - is that the sun does not set exactly over the corner of the temple.However, he says this can be explained by movement in the soft sand beneath the
settlement, which could have caused the buildings to slowly shift position over the past 4,000 years.
He thinks that is the likely explanation for the sun setting slightly to the side of the temple corner - and he has pictures to back it up.
These includes shots of walls still standing at the settlement which have clearly bowed over time, while others have been reinforced by the Dilmun people themselves.
He even thinks the unusual corner of the temple - which he says is the only one of its kind in the world - may have been initially adjusted by settlers to account for this movement.
"I don't know how the priest would have seen the sun," he said. "Maybe it would shine through a hole in the corner of the temple.
"The Dilmun civilisation did not leave any written evidence except the Dilmun seal, which does show both the sun and the moon.
"In the temple, there are two alters and on both were found remains of fish bones.
"Maybe they were for the sun and the moon gods."
Mr Al Shaikh's theory is also backed up by a 1998 report by a Khazal Al Majdee, which claims Saar is actually a Sumerian word and means "cycle" or "year".
"More people should come and witness this," said Mr Al Shaikh, who would like to see a proper study carried out to see how much the settlement has actually moved over time.
He says this would require proper equipment - such as that used in California to measure the earth's movement in volcanic zones.
However, he says it is worth it if it proves his theory once and for all.
"We have taken measurements with a compass and surveying equipment, but it is not that accurate," said Mr Al Shaikh.
He also urged local enthusiasts to visit the settlement today to see the phenomenon for themselves.
"Maybe people from Bahrain University or the Bahrain National Museum should come and witness this and record it," he said.
"People may only have the chance to see it for a couple of years before new buildings block out the view of the sunset."
The sun will set today at 6.33pm according to the Bahrain Met office, which is forecasting a clear evening.

KFDX News Mon June 21 2004

THOUSANDS ATTEND SUMMER SOLSTICE AT STONEHENGE

20,000 spectators gathered this morning at Stonehenge, in England, to ring in the official start of summer. Stonehenge, the 5,000 year old monument, has been closed to public on the summer solstice in recent years, but British officials, who did keep security tight, decided to let the celebrations take place.
Some people are opposed to allowing the celebrations at the site out of fear that Stonehenge could be damaged. Clashes between partygoers and police have been common in the past.

Leeds Evening Post Mon June 21 2004

British summer to start with washout

BY LOUISE MALE AND MARK LAVERY

THE first day of summer was due to be a complete washout across the region today as heavy rain and cloud filled the skies.The recent hot weather and glorious sunshine has been replaced by dark skies, heavy showers, thunder and even hail stones in Leeds.
Despite the heavy rain yesterday and overnight, thousands of people braved the bad weather at Stonehenge to mark the summer solstice. About 21,000 people opted to banish Monday morning blues and brave the chilly temperatures to catch a glimpse of the sun rising between the ancient stones, near Salisbury, Wiltshire.
A spokesman for PA Weather centre said: "This week we will see a typically British change in the weather. "The warm weather of recent weeks will be replaced by heavy showers, dark skies and thunder with bursts of sunshine.

Travelchannel.com Mon June 21 2004

Solstice Draws Thousands to Stonehenge AFP

The lure of Stonehenge seems nearly as old as the stones themselves, and the passage on Monday from spring into summer will uphold that hallowed tradition, with 30,000 expected to welcome in the solstice at dawn.
New Age hippies and believers in Druidic, Pagan and other pre-Christian religions are often joined by simple good-time seekers at the Stonehenge Summer Solstice for what has in past years led to a bit too much revelry for the tastes of local police.
Claiming they do not want to be killjoys, the officers have warned that partygoers will be searched for the drugs and alcohol that have in the past led to some damage to the 5,000-year-old site, one of the country's most visited tourist attractions.
Neither fireworks nor glass bottles will be allowed into the grounds for the occasion, which is holy to some - solstices are key symbolic moments in pre-Christian religions - and a stop en route to the Glastonbury outdoor music festival for others.
But in recognition of the day, the site by the national monuments organization English Heritage, will be open all night Sunday to Monday.
In a dramatic change from the norm, meteorologists have predicted clear skies at dawn, which means that revellers will have the exceptional opportunity to see the solstice arrive unshrouded by fog and cloud.

Reuters LONDON Sun June 20 2004

Thousands expected at Stonehenge for solstice

- Thousands of druids, spiritualists and revellers are expected to descend on Stonehenge early on Monday for the annual summer solstice celebration at the ancient stone circle.
English Heritage, guardians of the site on Salisbury Plain, said it was unlikely last year's record of 28,000 visitors would be broken. England's football team is playing Croatia on Monday night in the Euro 2004 tournament and the solstice does not occur over the weekend this year.
"We wouldn't expect a significant increase this year with the competing demands of football and the start of the week," an English Heritage spokeswoman said.
But dedicated summer solstice fans will not want to miss the chance to welcome sunrise at the prehistoric stone monument on the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.
The Met Office forecast a mix of cloud and sunshine, with an occasional shower on Monday.
The site is open to the public throughout the year, but the solstice allows revellers a rare opportunity to walk among the 20-tonne stones and touch them.
Druids, a pagan religious order dating to Celtic Britain, are drawn to Stonehenge, about 160 km (100 miles) west of London, because they believe it was a centre of spiritualism more than 2,000 years ago.
Scholars say the circle was built between 3000 BC and 1600 BC, but there is no consensus on whether it was a temple, a burial ground, an astronomy site or served other spiritual or temporal purposes.

BBC online Sun June 20 2004

Solstice crowd warning is issued

Police are warning commuters to steer clear of Stonehenge on Sunday and Monday morning because of the annual solstice celebrations.
Wiltshire Constabulary says roads around the ancient monument are likely to be busy as thousands celebrate the longest day of the year.
The A360 and A303 which run past the monument, and are expected to be most busy on Monday.
English Heritage is opening a free car park at the site during the solstice.

Sky News Sun June 20 2004

CELEBRATING SOLSTICE

Around 30,000 people are expected to converge on Stonehenge for one of the highlights of the counter-culture calendar, the summer solstice.
Gatherings in recent years have been far more low-key than in previous troubled times but police in Wiltshire and Hampshire have said they will still not tolerate illegal parties after the event.
They have also warned motorists to avoid the area if possible and have reminded drivers that illegally parked cars will be removed.
More than 200 people at last year's solstice returned to find their cars had been towed after leaving them on the side of the busy A303.
Police have said they do not want to be "killjoys" but have said they will search revellers for drugs if necessary and monument caretakers English Heritage have said no glass bottles or fireworks will be allowed on site.
Sunrise is expected at 04.58 on Monday and although cloudy weather often means a spectacular dawn is not usually visible, this year forecasters have predicted possible clear skies.

Stonehenge: The venue for solstice celebrations PIC1

BBC News online Sat June 19 2004

Revisiting Britain's biggest free festival

By Steve Hawkes

Seventy thousand people attended the 10th Stonehenge Free Festival PIC1

This Monday sees the 30th anniversary of the biggest free festival in British history.
BBC News Online examines how a small gathering of hippies celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge evolved into the high point of the British counter-cultural calendar.
Last year, more than 30,000 people gathered at Stonehenge to mark the summer solstice.
But police in Wiltshire and neighbouring Hampshire warned they would not tolerate any unlicensed "mass gatherings" after the midsummer event.
And officers were out in force to thwart any attempts to hold parties.
Andover divisional commander Superintendent Mark Chatterton said: "We are not being killjoys.

The first Stonehenge Free Festival was in 1974 (c) Austin Underwood PIC2

"We are all in favour of people having a good time, provided the event is properly licensed to ensure that it is safe for everyone."
Stonehenge Free Festival was never licensed.
And in 1985 - after being banned by English Heritage - it became so unsafe that no-one actually reached the ancient stone circle.
Phil Russell, the orphaned son of a wealthy landowner, and Jeremy Ratter, who later co-founded the anarcho-punk band Crass, staged the first Stonehenge Free Festival during the summer solstice of 1974.
Five hundred hippies climbed a barbed wire fence erected by the Ministry of Works.
And after the solstice, a hardcore of 30 defied a court injunction to stay - for another six months.
The publicity surrounding their court case ensured the attendance doubled for the solstice the following year.

The Battle of the Beanfield was seven miles from the stones PIC3

Mr Ratter later recalled the 1975 festival: "Wood fires, tents and tipis, free food stalls, stages and bands, music and magic... old friends met new, hands touched, bodies entwined, minds expanded and, in one tiny spot on our Earth, love and peace had become a reality."
But the festival's co-founder was not there.
Arrested for possession of LSD the previous month, Mr Russell had been committed to a psychiatric hospital.
Released immediately after the 10-day festival, he committed suicide weeks later.
Mr Russell's ashes were scattered over the stones during the summer solstice of 1976 - by which time, the festival's attendance had again doubled.
And, fuelled by the myth of martyrdom, the numbers continued to grow at the same rate until 70,000 people attended the 10th annual Stonehenge Free Festival on 21 June 1984.
It remains the biggest free festival in British history.
But the following year, the annual event's colourful history came to an abrupt end.

Stonehenge was closed to the public at the summer solstice for 15 years PIC4

And Stonehenge remained closed to the public during the summer solstice for the following 15 years.
On 1 June 1985, 300 would-be festival-goers were arrested - and 12 put in hospital - following a violent confrontation with the police.
Five hundred officers from six different forces dropped 15 tons (15,041kg) of gravel onto a road seven miles (11.27km) from the stones, and used council vehicles to block the path of a 140-vehicle convoy travelling to Stonehenge.
What happened next is hotly disputed.
The police say they were attacked with lumps of wood, stones and petrol bombs.
But those in the convoy say police "ambushed" their peaceful procession of vehicles - methodically smashing windows, beating people on the head with truncheons as they tried to surrender, dragging women along by their hair, and using sledgehammers to damage the interiors of their coaches.

The 1986 Public Order Act made trespass a criminal offence PIC5

English Heritage had secured a court injunction to prevent 83 named individuals from travelling within a few miles of Stonehenge.
But the Battle of the Beanfield - as it quickly became known - happened outside the jurisdiction of the injunction, and was indicative of a harder line being adopted at the highest level of government against the growing number of hippies spending their summers on the free festival circuit.
Every year since Margaret Thatcher had become prime minister in 1979, the number of "new-age travellers" had doubled - partly because of the growing number of evictions of squatters in London, historian Andy Worthington, the author of Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion, told BBC News Online.
And in 1982, 135 vehicles had left Stonehenge Free Festival and driven to join the Women's Peace Camp outside the airbase at Greenham Common, where US cruise missiles were housed.
The self-styled Peace Convoy had evaded 2,000 police officers to stage their own Cosmic Counter-Cruise Carnival behind the base, during which sections of the fence were pulled down, Mr Worthington told BBC News Online.
And from that day on the writing was on the wall.
"Thatcher decided to take on the travellers."

More than 30,000 people gathered to mark last year's summer solstice PIC6

Mrs Thatcher would later tell the Commons she was "only too delighted to do anything we can to make life difficult for hippy convoys", adding that "if the present law is inadequate we will have to introduce fresh law".
True to her word, the 1986 Public Order Act made trespass a criminal offence and stated: "Two people proceeding in a given direction can constitute a procession and can be arrested as a threat to civil order".
This was the final nail in the coffin of the British free festival movement - effectively stopping the "new-age travellers" and festival-goers in their tracks.
"People split all over the place," festival photographer Alan Lodge told BBC News Online.
"Large numbers went to Europe."
But rather than putting an end to the politicisation of the Peace Convoy, the Battle of the Beanfield pushed a significant number of free festival veterans further towards the activism of the emerging anti-globalisation and road protest movements.

At least 30,000 people are expected for this summer's solstice PIC7

As Mr Lodge, who was there, succinctly puts it: "If you have been hit around the head with a truncheon, you don't feel the same as you did before."
And by driving the free festival scene underground, the Public Order Act inadvertently paved the way for the numerous illegal rave parties that sprung up in increasingly remote locations during the late 1980s.
Today, Stonehenge is again at the centre of a bitterly contested conflict.
A plan to build a 1.3 mile (2.1km) tunnel under the World Heritage Site to reduce traffic congestion has divided opinion.
And with at least 30,000 people expected to converge on Stonehenge again for this summer's solstice - on Monday 21 June - the stones seem set to continue to arouse passions on both sides of the cultural divide for at least another 30 years.

Globe and Mail, Canada Sat June 19 2004

PERSON PLACE THING

Stonehenge

Forget the latest "it" bar or hot restaurant, the place to head to this weekend is Stonehenge. On Monday, modern-day Druids will celebrate summer solstice at the ancient astronomical observatory, watching the sun rise over the giant stones at 4:58 a.m. While the public will be allowed on to the sacred site, strict rules will be in force, including the prohibition of "amplified music." So leave the Spinal Tap CDs at home.

Economic & Social Research Council Fri June 18 2004

Stonehenge study tells pagans and historians it's good to talk

More understanding among all sides in the great Stonehenge debate might be made if the world was shown images of how the site is experienced by visitors today rather than only its imagined past, suggests new research sponsored by the ESRC. This research is published today as a part of Social Science Week.
But the project, co-directed by Dr Jenny Blain of Sheffield Hallam University and Dr Robert Wallis of Richmond University, London, admits this would undermine the very potent and almost universal need for Stonehenge to remain 'essentially preserved', shrouded in mystery, and the ancient guardian of a hidden past.
A report from their 'Sacred Sites, Contested Rights/Rites' project, comes at a time when considerable alliances have been formed at a public inquiry in Salisbury by groups fighting redevelopment plans for the Stonehenge area. These include a tunnel to take the A303 and the siting of a new visitor centre.
The project examined what have come to be known as sacred sites, and the climate of mistrust between heritage management and archaeologists on one side, and pagans and alternative interest groups on the other.
It included a detailed, systematic analysis of available published material, websites and press coverage, along with fieldwork and discussions with visitors and local people at Stonehenge and similar places.
Dr Blain said: "Stonehenge is the centre of an on-going struggle between travellers, pagans, 'Druids', members of the 'alternative' community, English Heritage, landowners and the police. The situation there spotlights differences between, on one hand, heritage concerns about preservation for future generations, and on the other, the demands of pagans and others who want open access for everyone."
Accommodations reached between the different parties at times of solstices and equinoxes remain contentious, and distrust is rife, says the report. It points out, however, that dividing lines have been drawn up differently over the current redevelopment plans.
For many pagans, prehistoric sites are not ruins but living temples or sacred sites. They feel drawn to these places to perform seasonal rituals or to observe astronomical events. Many pagans, including Druids, accept the 'preservation ethos', regarding such things as stone circles, barrows and iron age forts as artefacts of pre-Christian paganism, and therefore sacred.
Access is important to them, but not at the expense of preserving sites for future generations. However, other Druids and pagans, notably groups campaigning for the return of the Stonehenge free-festival, call for mass public celebrations, especially at the summer solstice.
The study points out that archaeologists investigating the religious significance of sites rarely consider rituals of the present day, dismissing them as invalid. Some heritage managers speak directly with pagan and other groups, and may even attend festivals, yet this is seldom recorded officially.
Pagans sympathetic to preservation are interested in archaeological views and want to become involved in site maintenance. They also try to explain their perceptions about landscapes as 'living' entities. But archaeologists who take part in pagan conferences tend to provide information rather than seek it, and the result is frustration for the groups.Picture presentations of sites such as Stonehenge invariably show them as dramatic ruins in splendid isolation, removing any signs of people or present-day activity. And the emphasis on such things as visitor centres and 'interpretation' handed out to naïve visitors, suggests a 'top-down' approach by middle-class heritage management, explaining something from a 'closed' past.
Dr Blain said: "Our project suggests that open and transparent dialogue is needed between all the interested groups. And this must begin with an appreciation of diversity."

For further information, contact: Jenny Blain on 791-955-6371 or 44-114-225-4413; e-mail: j.blain@shu.ac.uk Or Iain Stewart, Lesley Lilley or Becky Gammon at ESRC, on 01793-413032/413119/413122. becky.gammon@esrc.ac.uk

Marlborough Gazette & Herald Thurs 17 June 2004

Solstice warning

PARK at your peril is the warning Wiltshire police are giving to anyone intending to go to Avebury to see the midsummer sun rise on Monday.
Hundreds of revellers are expected to flock to the village for the summer solstice in the hopes of seeing the sun rise over the ancient stones circles.
Police have warned that only very limited parking will be available in the village.
The National Trust has ignored requests from local people to provide extra parking to prevent the village being brought to a standstill as it nearly was last year.
Police had to call in garages with breakdown trucks to remove dozens of cars parked illegally on the approach roads to the village.
Drivers had to pay a recovery fee to get their cars back from a police pound plus the cost of getting a taxi from Avebury.
Insp Bill Dowling, the Marlborough area police commander, has urged anyone who wants to attend the solstice celebrations in Avebury to leave their cars at home.
Cones banning parking will be placed on the roads around Avebury not already covered by double yellow lines and Insp Dowling warned that the police get-tough policy on illegal parking will continue.
Insp Dowling said: "The best advice we can give is to leave your cars at home and get someone else to drop you off in Avebury or use public transport."
The large southern car park on the Devizes side of the village is expected to fill quickly by the weekend with travellers' vehicles and others who plan to camp there for the entire weekend.
Police will be laying on extra officers throughout the weekend and have held extensive consultations with villagers, the parish council, Kennet District Council and Wiltshire County Council.
Insp Dowling said the police did not want to be spoilsports and stop people having fun but stressed that officers would come down heavily on illegally parked vehicles.
His message to would-be revellers or those who want to observe the solstice celebrations was: "Come and enjoy yourselves but be aware there is limited parking.
"If you park where you shouldn't then you can expect your car to be towed away."
Police are expecting 30,000 people to head for Wiltshire for the solstice celebrations and have advised motorists to avoid the Avebury and Stonehenge areas if they can.
Commuters and delivery drivers who would normally use the A303 past Stonehenge and the A4361 through Avebury are being told to seek alternative routes or expect delays.
A police spokesman said roads will be chaotic "The addition of the array of vehicles bringing over 30,000 people to both locations will undoubtedly cause congestion throughout the night as they arrive and again in the morning as they leave," he said.
English Heritage will be closing the Silbury Hill car park for the weekend and will have security staff on hand to prevent anyone climbing the 130 feet monument which has been closed to the public for several years.

Guardian Wed June 16 2004

Pilgrims' progress

As antiquarian rock star Julian Cope reflects on the significance of ancient megalithic monuments Andy Worthington says attempts to suppress the popularity of the summer solstice at Stonehenge and Avebury are doomed

As the summer solstice approaches, heritage managers at Britain's most popular ancient monuments, Stonehenge and its near-neighbour Avebury, will be hoping to avoid confrontation with pagans, travellers and hordes of the young and curious.
The sources of potential conflict are issues of access, ownership and preservation that began over a hundred years ago, when Druid revivalists and crowds of the general public first began to gather at Stonehenge. These issues came to a head in 1985, when the Stonehenge Free Festival, an annual event that had grown from a small gathering in 1974 to become a city-sized alternative state in 1984, was brutally suppressed at the Battle of the Beanfield.
In the wake of the festival's suppression, a four-mile exclusion zone was set up around Stonehenge every summer solstice. Although the authorities achieved a short-term aim, crippling the traveller scene that was at the heart of the festival, first with violence and then with waves of draconian legislation, the frustrated impulses of the festival community mutated into a new raft of interest groups, all staking their own claims on the monument.
A particularly successful example was the road protest movement, famous for campaigns at Twyford Down, Solsbury Hill and Newbury, which was suffused with the general growth of paganism during these years, with its emphasis on nature and ecology, gender equality, libertarianism and the revived, or invented, festivals of an ancient ritual year.
As the violence of the 1980s gave way to a more conciliatory approach, large crowds began to appear at Avebury for the major pagan festivals, and Stonehenge was finally reopened to the public on the solstice in 2000, although only after the House of Lords judged that the exclusion zone was illegal.
The new access arrangements have been phenomenally successful, with over 30,000 people attending the solstice in 2003, and a workable compromise has clearly been achieved, balancing the demands of all the different interest groups with the concerns of those charged with the conservation of Britain's ancient heritage. Nevertheless, doubts over the sustainability of these events remain.
Although English Heritage and the police are resolutely upbeat about the success of the new access arrangements at Stonehenge, the National Trust's property manager, Scott Green, has suggested that "the trust is not convinced that the solstice observance as it is currently celebrated is sustainable in the long-term".
At Avebury, the fault lines are even more evident. At the solstice in 2003, the local council enraged everyone from pagans to the Campaign to Protect Rural England by painting double yellow lines on all the roadside verges in and around the village, and on the night itself there were widespread complaints about the police's heavy-handed approach to removing illegally parked vehicles.
Whilst I understand the concerns of those outlined above, I suspect that all attempts to suppress the popularity of the summer solstice are doomed to failure. For better or worse, the solstice has established itself as an alternative national holiday, a potent mixture of spirituality, politics and celebration that is unlikely to diminish in popularity in the near future.
· Andy Worthington is the author of Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion, published on June 21 by Alternative Albion

Romancing the stones

Julian Cope may well be the only antiquarian researcher to have appeared on Top of the Pops while stoned on acid. He talks to John Vidal about why we venerate landscape, the politics of heritage, shamanism, and the prehistoric nature of football worship

Julian Cope in the Peak District PIC1

Julian Cope, a middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap, is sitting under a great oak at Avebury, one of Britain's finest megalithic sites, holding forth on what makes a place hallowed. There are, he says, tens of thousands of stone circles, dolmans, amphitheatres and monuments, but these are mere pointers. "The sacred landscape is everywhere," he says. "Britain's ancientness shocks me. It's all there, just below the surface. You can peel it away like the skin of an onion."
Cope is an expert on stone circles, but he's not your average antiquarian researcher. Rock star, self-styled shaman and goddess worshipper, his conversation roams from druids ("an elite bunch of control freaks") to planning policy (he calls for a new era of megalith-building in Britain).One minute he is learnedly discussing alignments of stones with a passer-by, the next he's leaping around imitating a horned God. The heritage industry, environmentalism, prehistoric culture and the goalkeeper-as-shaman are all on his idiosyncratic agenda.
Places can be both modern and sacred, he ruminates. The best examples are Avebury, Stonehenge, and especially Glastonbury, where people today still go to from the city in an updated version of western worship. But the examples are not exclusively ancient. St Paul's cathedral in London is sacred - though the technological age, embodied in the modern city buildings that surround it and dominate it, has sapped some of its power. The Twin Towers of New York, Cope argues, represented a sacred landscape for Americans. Each culture, he suggests, can make its own temples.
Cope is singular. He was the lead singer of post-punk indie band, The Teardrop Explodes, who shone brilliantly for a couple of amphetamine-fuelled years in the early 1980s. He became a cult solo rocker, and author of two critically-acclaimed volumes of autobiography. He may, too, be the only bona fide antiquarian researcher to have performed on Top of the Pops while on acid, and to have posed naked (for an album cover) beneath the shell of a giant turtle.
More recently, he gave two talks at the British Museum about the norse divinity Odin - an occasion noted for his appearance in five-inch platform shoes and the fact that his hairspray forced the evacuation of the building after setting off fire alarms.
He plays the fool, but he certainly isn't one. Four years ago, his eight-year study of the ancient sites of Britain, The Modern Antiquarian, did as much as a thousand archaeologists and academics to drag late-prehistoric megalithic cultural studies into the present. It sold more than 40,000 copies in hardback and won the respect of many of Britain's leading researchers. What impressed the academics was not just the fact that, unlike them, he had the time and money to visit almost every one of the hundreds of sites that litter Britain, but that the infectious enthusiasm and knowledge of this errant, sometimes absurd, genius was filled with the kind of insights that could never come from the mainstream.
Cope may follow a long and honourable line of 18th- and 19th-century amateur antiquarians who meticulously recorded ancient sites and tried to interpret pre-history, but his take is equally informed by rock 'n' roll, and his experience of wildness and shamanism.
The megalith builders, he says, were these islands' first settlers, and humanity's first known monument builders. Their urge to mark the environment they lived in with monuments came out of reverence for the sun and the moon, but also, he says, from the deep and abiding urge to make human significance from land scape - something which, he says, still deeply informs the British, who venerate both landscape and the past more than in any other country in Europe.
"The stones and circles of Britain are absolutely central to who we are today," he says. "They have defined and shaped our society. Our understanding of them makes us who we are. It shapes us, enriches our culture, and allows us to reflect on our own obsessions."
A few weeks ago, he visited the small Nine Ladies stone circle in the Peak District national park, just a few hundred yards from where a quarry company plans to extract millions of tonnes of stone. On one level, he says, he was shocked by the threatened disturbance and the "fucked up" quarriers; but he was also heartened by the intuitive defence of the stones by a group of protesters who have been camped in the woods nearby for more than three years.
Cope, an evironmentalist, is no stranger to protest, notably at the Newbury bypass, where he donned the white hats of the roadbuilders and started ordering around the security guards. But the Nine Ladies protest at Stanton Lees also made him think about how the British have, almost uniquely, held on to their past. He has just finished a massive book on the ancient cultures of Europe, visiting more than 400 sites - from the temple circles of Ireland to the stone boats of Scandinavia and the megaliths of Armenia and the Mediterranean. He found many in a sorry state, un appreciated or even knocked down. "We dont know how blessed we are with our monuments," he says. "In some places in Iberia, you have to wade through human excrement to reach rock-cut tombs." Moreover, there is little study being done. Even though the earliest neolithic settlers [in Crete] were the originators of the Greek myths, little is known about them.
The significance of the stones in Britain, he suggets, is not dissimilar to what it was thousands of years ago. "The Peak District national park is now a vast sanctuary for the hundreds of thousands of people who live near it, just as in the past the megalith builders turned the whole area into a huge limestone sanctuary reflecting the monumental landscape."
We should, he says, think differently about landscape today, not be so precious about monuments, and think about using it to reflect our own age and obsessions.
"My idea of beauty is first based on what I know about it, and then on what it looks like," Cope says. "Perhaps we should set windfarms up in lines or in circles. Let's be monumental about them." Giant sculptures such as the Angel of the North come, he says, from the same urge to give meaning to place.
The heritage conservation industry is, he suggests, overprotective. He would see nothing wrong with people today re-erecting fallen monuments, or even re-arranging the stones, just as the megalith builders themselves thought nothing about dismantling some structures, carting them off to make new monuments and changing their significance according to the needs of the times.
He deplores the kind of insensitive roadbuilding seen at Stonehenge or Newbury, which can carelessly destroy ancient landscapes, yet he is no lover of the government's obsessive protectionism that lists up to 400,000 buildings and preserves landscapes in aspic as some kind of romanticisation. "Often, it's for no other reason than that something is old," he says. "That's got to be total bullshit. Something is only beautiful because of what it stands for. Some of our destroyed castles are symbolic of terrible things, and are a mess. Why preserve the Byker estate in Newcastle? It's a monument to suffering."
One of the roles of the modern rock star, he suggests, is to be the shaman in society, opening the doors of the "underground". "It's as close to the shaman's contribution in prehistoric society as you can possibly get," he argues. "The shaman beating on the rotten log in Cheddar Gorge would have used the stack of speakers today. I see myself as a shaman. We have this idea that the shaman was insane, but I think he filtered through all society. You have always have to have people howling at the moon."
We are much closer to our ancient roots than we might think, he says. "Jim Morrison was probably the first to recognise the role of the rock 'n' roller as shaman," Cope says. "It was the Doors' epics, such as The End and When the Music's Over, that tipped the audience into the magical netherworld of ritual death and resurrection. Even a really shit band in a youth club has a barbarian eloquence. It's a religion substitute."
He sees echoes of prehistory cultures in everything. "Look at football worship," he says. "All those people gathered in an unroofed stadium [is] not unlike what must have gone on in pagan sanctuaries. The goalkeeper is the ultimate shaman, guarding the gates to the underground, wearing the No 1 jersey in a different colour and not seeming to be part of the team. We've never lost it. Modern beliefs that we are at the tail end of a culture that is killing itself is just bollocks."
What of today's archaeologists, picking away at our past? "They're like fucking mystics," he says. He loves and respects them, but cannot help winding them up. "I went down to one site wearing my Archbishop Makarios hat. 'I'm here to declaim loudly,' I said. 'You spend 16 hours a day pissing around in the wind and the rain. If that's not mystic, what is?'
"I think it's essential there's someone like me, if only to wind them up. I'm past the stage of trying to theorise about these places. I know what I believe, but I'm more interested in getting other people to see for themselves."
Cope stops for breath and, as if reviewing his role in life, remarks: "In the end, I'm not a very good rock 'n' roller, but I'm a very good Julian Cope."

· As the summer solstice approaches, historian Andy Worthington discusses sacred landscapes, public access and the politics of heritage at SocietyGuardian.co.uk/environment

· More about Julian Cope at www.headheritage.com

The Observer Sun June 13 2004

The stone diaries

Lose the roaring A roads and restore the empty grassland around Stonehenge? Sounds like a great plan - but objectors say it is missing the opportunity of the century

Neal Ascherson

A week tomorrow is the summer solstice. The druids, the pilgrims and an assorted army of expectant people will gather at Stonehenge to greet the dawn. If it's clear weather, they will hope to see the disc of the midsummer sun appear in the gap between two of the huge sarsen uprights, in line with the single monolith of the heel stone. Then they will sing and rejoice and inhale the flow of spiritual force.
But they won't quite see it. They never will, because the heel stone is not quite where they want it to be. The midsummer sun actually appears a few degrees to the left of it and all the photographers shuffle a pace or so to the side to make it look like a perfect alignment. The heel stone is not an astrological sighting-mark, but was originally one of a pair: two outlying uprights which formed something like a gateway to the main circle. And Stonehenge was probably not about midsummer sunrise at all. Its line-up makes more sense if it was aimed in the opposite direction, at the midwinter solstice in late December.
Nobody cares much. For at least six centuries, since the first mention of the place by chroniclers, Stonehenge has been a gigantic peg on which every kind of dream, myth or interpretation has been hung, like a succession of wreaths. As each wreath withered, it has been replaced by another. Stonehenge has been stones whirled through the air from Ireland by Merlin, a druid temple erected by the ancient Britons, a stellar observatory planned with accuracy down to the last megalithic inch, a shrine put up by Mycenaean colonists from Greece, a landing site used by aliens.
And, as excavations now suggest, these changing wreaths of new interpretation were already being hung on the monument by the peoples who raised and constantly redesigned it. Today, the fashion is to see it as a late, spectacular ornament added to an already ancient sacred landscape extending for miles around it.
Now Stonehenge is being redesigned yet again. After 10 years of wrangling, the government has put its weight behind a plan to 'save' Stonehenge for the future. The monument is now caught in the angle between two busy roads: the A344, which passes a few feet away from the stones, and the major A303, whose traffic roars and glitters a few hundred yards to the south of them.
The Highways Agency plan is to remove the A344 altogether and to bury the A303 in a 2.1km bored tunnel (costing some £192 million). The landscape around the stones is to be restored to open grassland. The tatty visitor centre and car park, now a beer can's throw away from the circle, will be abolished and a new, superior centre built by English Heritage a mile away over King Barrow Ridge. The idea is to bring back a lonely, silent Stonehenge, towering over unfenced prairies across which the 21st-century public can wander in freedom.
A four-month public enquiry into the scheme has now ended and the inspector will probably deliver his conclusions in September. If he favours the official scheme, the government could approve it early next year, grassland restoration could start at once and the road construction finished by 2008.
It all sounds generous and imaginative. But there is tremendous opposition. The inquiry revealed that English Heritage and the Highways Agency are almost totally isolated in supporting the plan. Fierce objections came from a grand coalition which included the National Trust (owners of most of the Stonehenge surroundings), the Council for British Archaeology, the Prehistoric Society, the World Archaeological Congress, and the powerful Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, to name only the most formidable.
Their case is that the plan misses the opportunity of the century. Ambitious as it sounds, it does not go nearly far enough and it inflicts damage on the wider ritual landscape which would be irreparable for generations. The roads at present sever buried structures (such as the great processional avenue which can be traced from the stones down to the River Avon), and form a barrier separating patterns of burial mounds and carefully placed long barrows which can only be understood as a whole.
The present scheme leaves most of this 'severance' in place. It would also disrupt a setting of monuments at the west end of the tunnel, while the deep approach cuttings to the tunnel portals would form an impassable trench across much of the land to the south of the stones.
What most of the objectors want is a much longer tunnel. Back in 1995, a planning conference which included English Heritage agreed to recommend a 4.5km bored tunnel, which would clear both the avenue and the cluster of barrows at the western end of the site. But the cost of this 'long bored tunnel' would come to between £300m and £400m and the response of John Major's government was to drop the whole project like a hot brick. The Stonehenge improvements were struck off the 1996 roads programme.
Deadlock ensued. English Heritage played with an idea of 'privatising' Stonehenge under Tussaud's management which fizzled out. Suddenly, Sir Jocelyn Stevens, then head of English Heritage, put forward a totally different plan: a tunnel of only 2km built by the much cheaper method of 'cut and cover' instead of deep boring.
There was an instant outcry. Not only was the tunnel far too short, archaeologists and conservationists protested, but 'cut and cover' (digging a cutting and roofing it over) would destroy forever a wide swath of precious ground crammed with relics of neolithic and Bronze Age life, death and reverence. The Blair government came to power and in 2002, after long brooding, suggested a slightly longer tunnel (2.1 km) but securely underground in a deep bored tunnel. English Heritage decided to back this, the origin of the present scheme. The National Trust hesitated but then decided to oppose it, holding out not for the long tunnel but for a 2.8km bore which would at least dive beneath the avenue and allow the reconnection of its long, curving route from the river to the stones.
English Heritage probably went for the short cutting-tunnel simply to break the logjam and get the government back into discussion. But there is still intense bitterness about its changes of mind. One inquiry witness, archaeologist Chris Chippendale, suggested that English Heritage's hopes of making money from the new visitor centre constituted a conflict of interest, and that its evidence to the inquiry should be struck out. What the inspector will decide about the roads scheme is anyone's guess, although many 'Stonehenge stakeholders' fear he will accept the Highways Agency plan with only minor suggestions for amendment.
Several of them, like archaeologists Mike Parker-Pearson and Peter Stone, say openly that it would be better to leave Stonehenge as it is, roaring roads and all, than accept a half-baked design which would delay any proper solution for at least 30 years. Parker-Pearson adds: 'This is a textbook example of how to destroy a monumental setting.'
The stones themselves are a structure so marvellous, and still revealing such incredible details of their story, that it's easy to forget their surroundings. The bluestones, each weighing several tons, were dragged down from the Welsh mountains and rafted - apparently - across the Bristol Channel. The sarsen blocks, almost as hard as granite and weighing tens of tons, were somehow brought across the hills beyond the Vale of Pewsey, 24 miles away, and down the Avon valley. These monsters were shaped and smoothed only with stone tools, reared into trilithons whose lintels are held in place by carved mortices and tenons - woodworking techniques used by people whose temples, until now, had been made of timber. Thirty million man-hours were required, it's calculated, for the circle's construction. It's almost easier to believe that Merlin raised the place by sorcery. The stones are overwhelming.
And yet they are only the surviving tip of a vaster thing, a half-known landscape of sacred places made of timber and earth which stretches beyond the horizons. This is the point made by the objectors. The plan's central flaw is that it sees only the stones - the monument as it exists in 2004 - and is bothered only about what can be seen and heard from that particular spot.
This ignores the 'greater Stonehenge' which exists both in time and space. The stones are only the finale. The time dimensions strain imagination. The last remodelling of the sarsen and bluestone ring took place in about 1900BC, as long before the Roman invasion as we are distant from the Romans. The first earth and timber ring on the spot was constructed just after 3000BC. and the sarsens were reared at 2400BC. But this was near the end of many sacred millennia, when wooden henge temples, ritual enclosures and long barrows already studded the area.
That sacredness seems to have begun almost 10,000 years ago. Under the present car park were found the sockets of three enormous pinewood uprights, perhaps totem poles, erected by hunter-gatherers around 7500BC. Between then and 1600BC, when the stones and the ancient ritual landscape finally went out of use, runs a river of magical time almost 6,000 years long.
All around Stonehenge, burial mounds still exist, isolated or set in lines along the downland slopes. But much of this greater Stonehenge is invisible or visible only as shadows on the turf when the grass is short. This is true of the processional avenue. It is also true of the cursus, one of those long, mystifying neolithic monuments shaped like a racetrack, which runs across the fields to the north of the stones. Both can be seen, but only when an expert points them out.
Every year, more is found. Much was made at the inquiry of a long palisade - tall posts set tightly together - which is beginning to emerge near the visitor centre. Parker-Pearson is investigating what may be an earlier bluestone monument, in a plantation near the cursus. All over the area, unmarked burials keep turning up like the 'Amesbury archer', an Alpine immigrant warrior buried in the early Bronze Age with his weapons and gold jewellery.
The most important 'greater Stonehenge' is not the visible one, not even the known but invisible one, but the unknown. Understanding of how this vast interlace of pathways, waterways, tombs, stones and enclosures fitted into a pattern is only just beginning to dawn. What knowledge is hidden in those square miles of undisturbed subsoil? Shouldn't they be classified as a monument more fragile than the stones? Isn't the plan to drive broad tunnel cuttings through that subsoil a crime against 'heritage'?
Archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes once wrote that every generation gets the Stonehenge it desires and deserves. All the grand plans for managing the place turn sour and come to be seen as blunders within 10 or 20 years. The decision in 1901 by the landowner Sir Edward Antrobus to fence off the stones and charge a shilling for admission was overturned after the First World War (so was an attempt by the RAF to knock the stones down as a danger to aircraft).
A plan by the Office of Works in the 1920s to clear the landscape of modern additions was frustrated by the appearance of a pig farm and a Stonehenge cafe and by the building of the road which is now the A303. The current situation, in which the trilithons rise out of a subtopia of main roads, car parks and an overcrowded visitor centre, dates from the 1960s and has been described by Parliament as 'a national disgrace'. This latest scheme, if it goes through, may well be considered a disaster even before it is completed.
In the end, Stonehenge can have no solution. This is for two reasons and the first is about the public. Everyone now wants a more accessible Stonehenge, but everyone also wants to clear its setting back to romantic solitude. These are incompatible hopes. What 'empty solitude' can there be when Stonehenge gets a million visitors a year, as it soon will?
The second reason is that Stonehenge is not a problem but a process. It is still alive and talking to us, as more slowly emerges to reveal the complex mysteries of this landscape. In 50 years' time, we will understand the place in a very different way. That will mean different visions of how to approach and appreciate it. The answer to 'When was Stonehenge?' is not 'in the neolithic and Bronze Ages'. Stonehenge is today and, above all, it is tomorrow.