Proposals for 11 changes to the way access to Stonehenge is managed were due to be presented to the Stonehenge Round Table meeting yesterday afternoon by representatives of the Open Access to Stonehenge Campaign. It will be interesting to see the outcome but two points jumped out at us. Here they are, followed by our own thoughts:
“We ask that: It is changed from being run as a managed event and run more as a gathering and religious celebration….”
So no booze then.
“That the open access is run by English Heritage staff in the same respectful manner as they treat their daily visitors. Not as it is now, left to management of security firms….”
Respect should indeed always be shown. However, it is a plain fact that the presence of massive numbers of attendees and booze ensure the management problems are very different at summer solstice. Numbers attending would need to be greatly reduced and the booze eliminated before the situation could possibly be managed in the same way as winter solstice or routine daily visiting.
The Heritage Journal 
14 comments
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04/11/2012 at 23:03
sorrel badger
Erm… I think I am right in stating that wine is an important part of one of the foremost religion’s ceremonies! Booze per se is not the problem – the problem is a negative attitude, which is not strictly confined to those who choose to imbibe! I have personally witnessed over-zealous and, in some cases, downright nasty security men who are only too eager to inflame a situation, rather than calm things down… I have many friends who will also bear witness to this unnecessary behaviour.
05/11/2012 at 04:23
heritageaction
We understand the Round Table Meeting resolved to have security personnel attend a future meeting so that concerns over the way they dealt with people could be explained. Hopefully that will be helpful.
We agree booze isn’t the problem, it’s the way a lot of people act after drinking it.
05/11/2012 at 09:40
heelstone hound
English Heritage might like to reconsider their current over active role in this peoples celebration, & simply provide the required parking that will allow folk to freely celebrate the summer solstice at stonehenge and surrounds during the daytime, commencing the triangle access just before sunrise as per the winter solstice. With an early morning start, boozers would be less likey to attend / cause problems, the event would be safer for the visibility, the over crowding in the centre circle & lighting and security costs that come with running a nighttime ‘rave up’ that EH & others at the round table seem so keen on perpetuating would disappear.
05/11/2012 at 10:08
heritageaction
EH’s “over active role” if such it is stems from overcrowding and inappropriate behaviour inside a world famous monument. Eliminate those two problems and no doubt they’d be happy to adopt a lighter touch.
05/11/2012 at 10:36
heelstone hound
Oppresive restrictions that have been placed on free daytime public access to stonehenge at summer solstice since 1984 have , to my mind resulted in the ( nightime managed access ) overcrowding that was never evident before then, and the peaceful respectful experience that was has become a place where people are treated without respect by officialdom and physically ejected shortly after the sunrise. The solstice day can surely be considered a sacred time and it is no surprise that many people feel robbed when it comes to EH’s early morning enforced ‘chuck out ‘ time. You won’t get that spectacle anywhere else on earth AFAIAW
05/11/2012 at 11:04
JonWells
Come off it. You can’t blame the bad behaviour on English Heritage. It’s entirely the fault of the individuals that choose to act badly.
05/11/2012 at 11:55
heelstone hound
I noticed nothing by way of ‘bad behavior’ from the general public at the stonehenge summer solstice celebration in the years immediately prior to the 1985 restrictions, merely a peaceful respectful unique and culturally stimulating gathering.
English Heritage have created a completely different scenario by herding the public into the stonehenge triangle during the night prior to the sunrise and then removing them so they cannot enjoy the solstice daytime at stonehenge.
Whilst it is of course up to the individual to act with respect, I concur that EH’s permission for consumption of alcohol within the triangle typically serves only to excesserbate the problems that result from frustrations at restrictions of freedom that are all to evident at the event
05/11/2012 at 12:48
Archer
Yes, maybe they were a bit better behaved back then, hound, (debatable), but it doesn’t take away from the fact that thousands of trampling feet, urinating, defecating (yes, it happens), throwing down rubbish inc fag buts and bottle tops that get ground into archaeologically sensitive earth, climbing on stones, walking all over the all ready eroded bank (still containing human remains) and so on, is just plain destructive to the monument.
Do you really care about this place or just what YOU can get out of it for a few moments?
And so many scream about their rights to be there, then stagger away in the morning and let someone else clear up their detritus (with the exception of a few pagans who do help out.)
As for security, well, maybe some are over zealous, i don’t know, but I have seen a lot of ‘revellers’ there over the years who are certainly no fluffy bunnies, out of their heads and harrassing other visitors, spitting and swearing if asked not to do something disrespectful like climbing on the stones. One even randomly grabbed a guy’s guitar and smashed it!
You should actually feel rather privileged to be in there at all…because there’s no evidence of huge gatherings inside in the era it was made. There’s every probability only the elite entered it, and everyone else was outside.
05/11/2012 at 13:56
heelstone hound
@Archer you appear to be astonishingly concerned with what i would class as typically normal human activities at an all night celebration in our current throw away consumer society. I feel that were the event allowed to run in the daytime, there would be greater respect from participants & a lot less cost all round. since you ask, i do make personal effort each year to assist in the clear up. As for privileged access for the elite ( or monied )
its about time that those sort of ideas were got rid of & buried for good, along with the various human remains disrespectfully stolen from the site by archeologists over the years & which are currently languishing in museums
05/11/2012 at 14:11
JonWells
Well, “urinating, defecating (yes, it happens), throwing down rubbish inc fag buts and bottle tops that get ground into archaeologically sensitive earth, climbing on stones, walking all over the all ready eroded bank”….. might be what you “would class as typically normal human activities at an all night celebration” but it’s not what most people think is acceptable inside Stonehenge.
05/11/2012 at 14:46
Archer
Sorry, if you rever a place as sacred, you do not desecrate or destroy it surely.If you do then your purpose is not to worship there, obviously, and it must mean nothing to you except as a huge party ground.
I have to laugh about your reference to the human remains ‘disrespectfully stolen’ when you think it is perfectly acceptable to damage/destroy the banks where over 100 people are STILL buried. And to chuck around rubbish and human waste near these graves and inside the monument itself just because ‘humans do.’ (Well,actually, they didn’t do it back then so why should you now, or perhaps you are less civilised than your neolithic ancestors?)
Why the obssesion with piling into Stonehenge anyway? There are hundreds of stone circles; funnily enough, often devoid of visitors/’worshippers’. Stonehenge just seems to be a place where certain elements can grandstand and atention seek.
05/11/2012 at 18:38
heelstone hound
We seem to be left with sensationalism of the various conducts of those who have been attracted to the stonehenge solstice on the premise of an all night outdoor raveup. That is why i suggest changing the schedule.
05/11/2012 at 20:34
Digger
“thousands of trampling feet, urinating, defecating (yes, it happens), throwing down rubbish inc fag buts and bottle tops that get ground into archaeologically sensitive earth”
In an ironic way, the above actions are creating an archaeological record for future generations and whilst I despise rubbish, archaeology is about the detritus of human existence piled layer upon layer on top of one another and what we get so excited about when we dig it.
An unusual perspective I know but one that needed commenting upon.
08/11/2012 at 09:07
Jes
This should not be construed as an excuse for english heritage to make more rules. That is clearly not the idea. It is an opportunity for english heritage to recognise that stonehenge is the property of the people, and to stop interfering with the natural celebration by imposing restrictions and unwanted security. Archer- no one has ever done as much damage to the sacred landscape of stonehenge as the english heritage tunnel and carpark, the fences and unsporting tollbooths. That is the desecration that shows its purpetrators see no value in stonehenge except lining their pockets. People would clear up after themselves were they given the time and freedom to do so. This can be proved, the volunteers are available.
Digger- strangely, no archeological remains were found of the free festivals of the seventies in a recentish television dig.