The battle for the future of Stonehenge

Meanderer

Meanderer

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Britain’s favourite monument is stuck in the middle of a bad-tempered row over road traffic. By Charlotte Higgins (2019)

"Since Stonehenge slipped into the written record in the medieval era, it has been a place to project our ideas of ourselves. It was said, by the 20th-century archaeologist and writer Jacquetta Hawkes, that “every age has the Stonehenge it deserves”.

"And so today’s Stonehenge is not William Blake’s terrifying “building of eternal death”; nor is it Thomas Hardy’s “monstrous place”, where Tess of the D’Urbervilles sleeps her last night before being taken to be hanged. Nor is it even the Stonehenge of the counterculture, where peace-freaks revelled until they were brutally routed in “the Battle of the Beanfield” in 1985, one of the most notorious episodes in the history of British policing".

"Our Stonehenge has none of this grandeur or pathos. Instead, it is at the centre of a peculiarly modern British circus – one that involves an agonisingly long planning dispute, allegations of government incompetence, two deeply entrenched opposing sides, and a preoccupation with traffic and tourism. This absurdist drama, entirely worthy of our times, is a long and bitter battle over whether to sink the highway that runs beside it into a tunnel".
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This argument has been going for years and years, the existing road
is one lines each way and some slow down to look at the monument,
which was rebuilt to somebody's idea of how it was, without proof.

There have been many meetings of the locals about the road and each
time a proposal was put forward it was voted down, but in November
2020, it was approved, but I don't understand why it has to go in to a
tunnel, must be to stop traffic slowing.
https://highwaysengland.co.uk/our-work/a303-stonehenge/

Mike.
 

Crowds gather at Stonehenge for solstice despite advice ​


"People inside the stone circle during Summer Solstice at Stonehenge, where some people jumped over the fence to enter the stone-circle to watch the sun rise at dawn of the longest day of the year in the UK, in Amesbury, England, Monday June 21, 2021. The prehistoric monument of ancient stones have been officially closed for the celebrations due to the coronavirus lockdown, but groups of people ignored the lockdown to mark the Solstice, watched by low key security". (Ben Birchall/PA via AP)
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Ancient Stonehenge faces modern problems with plans for a nearby tunnel to ease traffic​

 
Meanderer said:

Crowds gather at Stonehenge for solstice despite advice ​


"People inside the stone circle during Summer Solstice at Stonehenge, where some people jumped over the fence to enter the stone-circle to watch the sun rise at dawn of the longest day of the year in the UK, in Amesbury, England, Monday June 21, 2021. The prehistoric monument of ancient stones have been officially closed for the celebrations due to the coronavirus lockdown, but groups of people ignored the lockdown to mark the Solstice, watched by low key security". (Ben Birchall/PA via AP)
Britain_Stonehenge_Solstice_41614.jpg
Click to expand...
Idiots.. no masks or any social distancing.... and doubtless many of them off their heads on some substance
 
A Huge ‘Highway’ of Roads and Rivers Brought Stones and Pilgrims to Build Stonehenge

"Do you think the people that built Stonehenge had any idea that their arrangement of standing stones would endure to confound humanity thousands of years into the future? Regardless, it has. From how the stones were transported, how the henge was built, and who the builders were, Stonehenge has remained a constant source of mystery for professional archaeologists, historians, and purveyors of spurious claims alike, not to mention the general public who tend to think it’s just pretty cool. A paper recently published in the journal Antiquity by Richard Bevins of the Museum of Wales and Rob Ixer of the University of Leicester attempts to demystify one of Stonehenge’s many unknowns".

"Imagine yourself as one of those Neolithic people. You wake up. It’s a beautiful day, but there’s all sorts of commotion going on. Rushing to see what all the fuss is about you see a massive caravan of large creatures and people in religious garb. They’re hauling massive stones down the road. It’s all very intriguing. You call out to the caravan “Hey, where’re you going?”

"The leader of the caravan pulls back a hood and issues a response “To confuse the future! You in?”

(Read More)
 
When Stonehenge was for sale
The site is an iconic landmark today — but it wasn't back then.
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Stonehenge in 1920, only a few years after the site was donated to the government. (Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

"If you happened to be perusing the pages of the British magazine Country Life in September 1915, you likely would have come across an advert in the property section that, through modern eyes, would appear to be a practical joke."

"There, looming large in a black-and-white photograph, stand the iconic monoliths of Stonehenge, advertised as a companion feature for an estate sale spanning some 6,400 acres. Incredibly, if you had deep pockets in the early 20th century, you could have purchased Stonehenge."

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"Sacrilege is a life-sized, inflatable replica of Stonehenge, the British heritage and pagan site and popular tourist attraction. It is a bouncy castle, an interactive inflatable pillow that viewers may walk and jump on. It is an energetic, humorous work that Jeremy Deller describes as a way to get reacquainted with ancient Britain with your shoes off. It is a touring project visiting 33 sites across the UK and launched at the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art."
iu
 
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