Old habit die hard! I’ve been here 24 years – and today when I signed some paperwork I declared merrily “Oh it’s midsummer’s day” – I got a very odd look, because, of course, it’s midwinter here.
Some many long years ago, I went to the Stonehenge Festival – only to find that I was a day late… !
However, undeterred I went back the next year. In those days there were no restrictions to wandering around and touching the the stones… It was quite magical.
I read somewhere, but can’t now find any reference to that information that the monument was donated to the nation on the condition that it was to be kept open and free to the public.
Monument? Why do they call an old grain silo .. a monument 😦
🙂
Hello Boadicea:
Cecil Chubb bought Stonehenge at auction in 1915 for 6600 Sterling, the British Government did not consider it worth bidding, .
Part of his wiki entry reads as follows:
He gave Stonehenge to the nation on 26 October 1918. The deed of gift included the following conditions:
That the gate money for the remainder of the war should go to the Red Cross
That there should be free admission for residents of local parishes (Shrewton, Netheravon, Durrington and Amesbury), later extended to the seventeen parishes of the old rural district of Amesbury,
That the entry fee should be not more than a shilling, and
That no buildings or erection other than a peg or similar should be located next to the stones.
These covenants are no longer enforceable, although local residents still receive free admission.
Of course it is NOT Midsummer, Viking-style just yet. The god-botherers hijacked the rites many mmons since and decalred it would henceforth be ‘Sankt Hans’ on 23rd June. And so it is, willy nilly.
Luckily the old rites of bonfires, witches and an excess of more or less everything are still in vogue here and we plan to perpetuate them accordingly. Over on the West Coast celebrants throw stones at the sun setting into the West Sea, as the North Sea is dubbed here.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Old habit die hard! I’ve been here 24 years – and today when I signed some paperwork I declared merrily “Oh it’s midsummer’s day” – I got a very odd look, because, of course, it’s midwinter here.
Some many long years ago, I went to the Stonehenge Festival – only to find that I was a day late… !
However, undeterred I went back the next year. In those days there were no restrictions to wandering around and touching the the stones… It was quite magical.
I read somewhere, but can’t now find any reference to that information that the monument was donated to the nation on the condition that it was to be kept open and free to the public.
Monument? Why do they call an old grain silo .. a monument 😦
🙂
Hello Boadicea:
Cecil Chubb bought Stonehenge at auction in 1915 for 6600 Sterling, the British Government did not consider it worth bidding, .
Part of his wiki entry reads as follows:
He gave Stonehenge to the nation on 26 October 1918. The deed of gift included the following conditions:
That the gate money for the remainder of the war should go to the Red Cross
That there should be free admission for residents of local parishes (Shrewton, Netheravon, Durrington and Amesbury), later extended to the seventeen parishes of the old rural district of Amesbury,
That the entry fee should be not more than a shilling, and
That no buildings or erection other than a peg or similar should be located next to the stones.
These covenants are no longer enforceable, although local residents still receive free admission.
Of course it is NOT Midsummer, Viking-style just yet. The god-botherers hijacked the rites many mmons since and decalred it would henceforth be ‘Sankt Hans’ on 23rd June. And so it is, willy nilly.
Luckily the old rites of bonfires, witches and an excess of more or less everything are still in vogue here and we plan to perpetuate them accordingly. Over on the West Coast celebrants throw stones at the sun setting into the West Sea, as the North Sea is dubbed here.