Thousands at Stonehenge mark summer solstice
AROUND 23,000 WERE AT THE NEOLITHIC SITE IN WILTSHIRE TO WITNESS THE SOLAR SPECTACLE ON THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR
Thousands of people have descended on Stonehenge to mark this year’s summer solstice. Police said around 23,000 were at the neolithic site in Wiltshire, with others — including hippies and pagans — visiting the nearby Avebury stone circle to witness the sun rising on the longest day of the year.
The figure was down on the estimated 36,000 who attended last year and the 30,000 expected, but they were able to get a glimpse of the sun after it came over the horizon at 4.52am, despite cloud in the area.
Police said arrests were lower than in previous years, with nine people being held for drugs offences at Stonehenge and a handful being cautioned for possession of Class A drugs, while no arrests were made at Avebury.
Great success
Superintendent Gavin Williams, who led the Wiltshire police operation, said: “Solstice 2015 has been a great success with approximately 23,000 people celebrating at Stonehenge in the positive, friendly atmosphere as they waited for the sunrise. This year the crowds were able to see the sun as it appeared over the horizon, before it disappeared under low cloud. “The success of the event depends largely on the good nature of those attending and we are pleased that people could enjoy solstice in the spirit of the event.”
Stonehenge is believed to have been used as an important religious site by early Britons 4,000 years ago. The more recent pagan celebrations at the site began in the 20th century.
More than a million people flock to Stonehenge every year, with thousands attending ceremonies to mark the solstices in summer and winter.
King Arthur Pendragon, a former biker born as John Rothwell, changed his name legally 30 years ago. He has campaigned for decades on behalf of Britain’s druids and pagans for access to Stonehenge, the still-mysterious circle of stones and burial mounds just outside Salisbury, begun about 3000BC, that is on a perfect axis for the summer and winter solstices.
At the summer solstice, Arthur leads the ceremony there, at the Heel Stone, the most northeasterly stone where the sun comes up, he said, joined by “druids and pagans and bards and bands.”
It’s one of the few days a year when admission fees are waived.
His partner, Kazz Smith, who is a florist when not reigning, complained about the high price of entry now that English Heritage, which operates Stonehenge, has significantly improved the site by covering over a road and building a parking lot and visitors centre farther from the sacred stones. The project, designed to restore Stonehenge to its surroundings, cost £27 million (Dh157.32 million). But admission is £14.50 for an adult, or £37.70 for a family, and must be reserved in advance.
“People can’t afford it!” she said.
Arthur and Kazz are a living example of Richard Nixon’s sage advice to Heath, a noted yachtsman, inscribed to him in 1971 on a photograph of the former president at the wheel of a yacht.
“In our line of work,” Nixon wrote, “it’s always good to have a second skill!”
Kate Davies, the general manager of Stonehenge, said that she knew Arthur well. He attends monthly meetings to plan for the solstice ceremonies, when the visitors centre is shut, the site is free and celebrants are allowed within the stones, even with a small amount of alcohol, if they wish, “so long as there are no glass bottles.”
The planning session, she said, is called “the round-table meeting — no connection to Arthur intended — open to druids and pagan representatives.” She likes Arthur, she said, and found him a great advocate for celebrants to take public transportation to the site, since parking is limited.
Different mood now
“It’s a very different mood now from 20 or 30 years ago,” she said, when celebrants clashed violently with the police and Arthur and his band were often arrested. “Of course the police have changed, too.”
Among the stones on a beautiful late spring morning, Heather Sebire, the curator of Stonehenge, spoke of the circle and the burial grounds as a place of worship, even if precise Neolithic rites are unknown.
“We want to be careful not to write off our druid friends as some Victorian fantasy,” she said.
“But you feel something spiritual here. As an archaeologist, this is a ceremonial space, the equivalent of a cathedral. They gathered here, and I’m sure they were just as spiritual as we are, and perhaps more so. They were tuned into the elements, life was very hard, and the sun and the seasons mattered, and they revered their dead.”
She remembered when President Barack Obama made a sudden visit last year, after a Nato summit meeting in Wales, with his entourage.
“They all ripped their ties off,” Sebire said. “It was a beautiful evening, and Obama looked around and said, ‘I got it. If it weren’t a monument, I’d come just here to sit on a stone and meditate.’”