Stonehenge #7

Stonehenge — No Way To Treat An Iconic Landmark

The nearly-wasn’t of Stonehenge during the 20th Century

Image of Stonehenge c.1885 by unnamed photographer, showing the poor state of the megaliths. The track the wagons are using is cut across the henge ditch, visible lower left. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia.

There’s nothing like trying to wreck an iconic monument which has been part of the landscape for 5,000 years. Yet during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that’s more or less what occurred — and not only the once.

Throughout the 1800s wealthy visitors had been chipping off ‘souvenirs’ from the sarsen megaliths to add to collections acquired during Grand Tours of classical Europe, not to mention the long-standing local belief that ground stone from the site could heal wounds, or pieces added to wells would purify the water. The introduction of the railways mid-century brought less wealthy but equally acquisitive souvenir hunters seeking an adornment to their mantelpieces.

The sheer passage of time was also making itself felt, with sarsen stones twisting in their sockets and slipping lintels. The Antrobus family, as the landowner, propped stout timbers against leaning megaliths to help combat the erosion, but despite Stonehenge being listed under the 1882 Ancient Monuments Protection Act, and fledgling entities such as the National Trust and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings — both of which still exist — not a lot happened.