Around 8,000 revellers – Druids, pagans, hippies, local residents and tourists –gathered around Stonehenge in southern England this week to express their devotion to the sun, or to have some communal fun.
Many, clad in an array of colourful costumes and even antlers, stayed and celebrated the summer solstice at a prehistoric stone circle for the night and greeted sunrise on Wednesday, which is the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere.
At dawn, the sun rose behind what is known as the Heel Stone in the northeast part of the horizon and the first rays shone into the heart of Stonehenge, one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments and a World Heritage Site.
“Stonehenge continues to captivate and to bring people together to celebrate the seasons, just as it has done for thousands of years,” said Nichola Tasker, director of Stonehenge at English Heritage, a charity that manages hundreds of historic sites.
“There was a wonderful atmosphere from sunset to sunrise, and everybody enjoyed a very atmospheric morning,” she added.
In addition to the 8,000 people present, English Heritage said that approximately 154,000 people tuned in from around the world to watch the sunset and sunrise on the charity’s livestream.
All over the UK, optimism reigned supreme as summer officially starts. It’s no coincidence that the nearby Glastonbury Festival, one of the world’s biggest music events, opened its doors on Wednesday, too. Both Stonehenge and Glastonbury supposedly lie on ley lines – mystical energy connections across the UK.
For druids, modern-day spiritualists linked to the ancient Celtic religious order, Stonehenge has a centuries-long importance, and they performed their rituals around the solstice in their traditional white robes. It’s effectively all about the cycle of life, of death and rebirth.
This year, the summer solstice at Stonehenge started at 7 p.m. Tuesday and ran through 8 a.m. Wednesday. For this one night, worshippers are allowed to spend time inside the stone circle. Some chanted or played their acoustic guitars or banged their drums. Alcohol was prohibited, as were sound systems. Blankets were allowed, but no sleeping bags, please. And definitely, no climbing on the stones.
The rules have been tightened over the decades, certainly during the coronavirus pandemic. Back in the less-restrained past, tens of thousands would travel by foot, car, bus, or motorcycle to worship at the solar temple, or just have a bit of fun.
Approximately 128 km southwest of London, Stonehenge is a symbol of British culture and history and remains one of the country’s biggest tourist draws.
Stonehenge was built on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain in stages starting 5,000 years ago, with the unique stone circle erected in the late Neolithic period about 2,500 B.C. Some of the stones, the so-called bluestones, are known to have come from the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 240 km away, but the origins of others remain a mystery.
The site’s meaning has been the subject of vigorous debate, with some theories seemingly more outlandish, if not alien, than others.
English Heritage notes several explanations – from Stonehenge being a coronation place for Danish kings, a druid temple, a cult centre for healing, or an astronomical computer for predicting eclipses and solar events.
The charity said the most generally accepted interpretation “is that of a prehistoric temple aligned with the movements of the sun.”
After all, the stones match perfectly with the sun at both the summer and winter solstices.