Full circle? Ten new facts about Stonehenge

Many people reading this will remember the battles that took place in the 1980s between the police and Peace Convoy travellers who wished to gain access to Stonehenge for their midsummer festivities. In June 1985, the Battle of the Beanfield led to the arrest of 537 travellers, the largest mᴀss arrest of civilians since the Second World War. The authorities of the day feared that the archaeology of Stonehenge would be damaged by the lighting of fires and the digging of latrine pits by those planning to hold a free solstice festival.

below Overlooking Stonehenge, one of the most immediately recognisable and intensively studied prehistoric monuments in the world. — Overlooking Stonehenge, one of the most immediately recognisable and intensively studied prehistoric monuments in the world.

A century earlier, the casual vandalism being routinely inflicted by tourists on Stonehenge was the subject of stormy letters to The Times on a par with those generated by 20th-century revellers. One correspondent complained in 1885 about the presence at the site of people with ‘no intelligent interest’ in the monument, and others pointed to the ‘irreparable injury to the stones constantly going on at the hands of thoughtless and mischievous visitors’, who, with the help of ‘neighbouring rustics’, were in the habit of hammering off fragments of stone to take as souvenirs.

In 1886, a deputation from the Wiltshire Archaeological Society visited the monument to inspect the damage and come up with a solution. Ironically, the group included Henry Cunningham, who had previously been forced to publish a public apology in the local press after being caught undertaking illicit excavation at the monument. Worse still, Neville Story Maskelyne, the author of a pioneering paper on the petrology of Stonehenge published in the Wiltshire Society’s journal in 1878, freely admitted that he had taken 20 fresh samples from the stones without seeking permission. Indeed, the owner of Stonehenge at the time, the third Sir Edmund Antrobus, was adamant that more damage was done by archaeologists than by ‘excursionists’, while a Times leader insisted that rabbits and the ‘natural processes of decay’ were a greater threat to the monument than ‘human wantonness and vulgarity’.

left The Great Trilithon and stone 56, pH๏τographed in 1881 by J J Cole. This leaning stone is a central element in the Romantic views of Stonehenge painted by Turner and Constable, and known through many reproductions; despite its alarming angle, there was no contemporary evidence that it was unstable. below The same group of stones, from the opposite direction, sH๏τ in the early 1890s with a group of German visitors leaning on stone 56. Improvements in road and rail transport made Stonehenge more accessible in the last decade of the 19th century. — The Great Trilithon and stone 56, pH๏τographed in 1881 by J J Cole. This leaning stone is a central element in the Romantic views of Stonehenge painted by Turner and Constable, and known through many reproductions; despite its alarming angle, there was no contemporary evidence that it was unstable.

Scholars who disliked having to share Stonehenge with ‘people who use it merely for leisure’ nevertheless demanded ‘proper protection’ for the monument. Astonishingly, their solution was the digging of a deep ditch around Stonehenge, which they proposed to line with a ring of spiked poles and barbed wire. Admission to the site would thus be ‘confined to one entrance, where a janitor might be placed to admit only those who can undertake to behave themselves properly in the enclosed area’.

Sir Edmund, then the owner of Stonehenge, asked who would pay for all of this; although he appointed a caretaker – William Judd – to deter people from having elaborate picnics on and among the stones, he continued to insist on free and unrestricted access. His views were reflected in Judd’s response to an anonymous newspaper correspondent. Signing himself ‘Archaeologist’, the correspondent had written to express his ‘disgust’ at the presence of schoolchildren during his visit to Stonehenge. Judd mildly pointed out that ‘children have as much right to visit there as antiquarians’.

The same group of stones, from the opposite direction, sH๏τ in the early 1890s with a group of German visitors leaning on stone 56. Improvements in road and rail transport made Stonehenge more accessible in the last decade of the 19th century.

Despite this, Stonehenge did indeed get a barbed-wire fence – though without the ditch – in 1901. The Bishop of Bristol and former Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge, G F Browne, claimed to have been the originator of the barbed-wire scheme, and wrote in his memoirs (published in 1915) that ‘we all agreed that it was unsafe to leave this great monument open to the wandering public; it must be protected from mischief wrought by casual pᴀssers-by’.

Inevitably, the barbed wire aroused hostility: the Commons and Footpaths Preservation Society (the predecessor of today’s Open Spaces Society) challenged the legality of the fence. Even so, it remained in place long after Stonehenge pᴀssed into public ownership, and the subsequent history of Stonehenge has been one of greater constraints on entry to the stone circle, rather than a return to the days of unconstrained access.

above The Stonehenge that visitors saw in the late 19th century (this pH๏τograph, attributed to J L Lovibond, dates from c.1885), just before health and safety concerns saw first the erection of timber scaffolding to support the leaning stones, and then a series of questionable attempts to return the stones to their ‘original’ positions. — The Stonehenge that visitors saw in the late 19th century (this pH๏τograph, attributed to J L Lovibond, dates from c.1885), just before health and safety concerns saw first the erection of timber scaffolding to support the leaning stones, and then a series of questionable attempts to return the stones to their ‘original’ positions.

Fact 2: Stonehenge is an Arts and Crafts monument

The Stonehenge that we know today is very different from the monument that visitors saw 100 years ago. From the mid-1820s to 1915, Stonehenge was owned by the Antrobus family, pᴀssing through the hands of four successive owners all called Sir Edmund. During the three decades of ownership by the third Sir Edmund (from 1870 to 1899), the number of leaning and fallen stones reached a peak, but just as he supported free access, so Sir Edmund rejected utterly the idea that Stonehenge should be restored or made more secure.

This was because of his adherence to the values of William Morris’s Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), which saw restoration as a form of falsification. Morris’s SPAB manifesto, launched in 1877, called on architects and restorers to ‘stave off decay by daily care… and otherwise resist all tampering with either the fabric or the ornament of the building as it stands’.

Antrobus belonged to the more extreme end of the non-interventionist spectrum, and the most he was prepared to countenance was the erection of timber scaffolding to hold up those stones most in danger of falling. He explained that he did so reluctantly (‘so entire is my detestation of restoration’), and that the scaffolding was there ‘for the preservation of the [monument’s] observers, and not for the monument itself’.

The controversial straightening of stone 56 in 1901. The pH๏τograph was taken by Clarissa Miles, a friend of the Antrobus family who owned Stonehenge at the time and employed the Arts and Crafts architect Detmar Blow to supervise the work. Even greater intervention saw the temporary removal of the lintel spanning uprights 6 and 7, whose stone holes were then excavated, the stones pushed to their presumed original vertical position, and the holes filled with concrete. The scale of this and other actions led archaeologist Christopher Chippindale to conclude that half of Stonehenge’s stratigraphy has been destroyed.

below left & below The controversial straightening of stone 56 in 1901. The pH๏τograph was taken by Clarissa Miles, a friend of the Antrobus family who owned Stonehenge at the time and employed the Arts and Crafts architect Detmar Blow to supervise the work. Even greater intervention saw the temporary removal of the lintel spanning uprights 6 and 7, whose stone holes were then excavated, the stones pushed to their presumed original vertical position, and the holes filled with concrete. The scale of this and other actions led archaeologist Christopher Chippindale to conclude that half of Stonehenge’s stratigraphy has been destroyed.

At the third Sir Edmund’s death in 1899, the pendulum swung in the other direction: the fourth Sir Edmund took advice from the Society of Antiquaries and the Wiltshire Archaeological Society after the collapse of sarsen stone 22 and its lintel on 31 December 1900. They recommended straightening three of the leaning stones, and re-erecting three sarsens and two lintel stones. The proposal to return stone 56 to an upright position sparked a national debate, because this tall leaning stone was central to the powerful paintings of Constable and Turner, and had become emblematic of Romantic views of the monument.

Sir Edmund was determined, however, and the man he put in charge was the Arts and Crafts architect Detmar Blow (1867-1939), friend and disciple of William Morris. Blow made his mark on the Stonehnge landscape not only through his work on the stones, but also by restoring a number of buildings on the Antrobus estate, including the family’s Amesbury Abbey home.