Chapter 11 Stonehenge: A Mecca of Celtic Idealism The Office of Works Stonehenge was Alpha and Omega to the Universal Bond. ‘Here the offices now performed by Canterbury, Westminster, Greenwich and Eton were unified. Some day it may become a new Jerusalem and the temple of peace among the nations’, explained Macgregor Reid in 1932. It was to them a living temple, and they were profoundly – and volubly – indignant at all attempts to interfere with their right to celebrate their faith without toll or interference. In 1918, when Cecil Chubb gave Stonehenge to the nation, the Office of Works resolved to retain both the admission charge and Antrobus’ former caretaker, both of which were anathema to the Druids. The following June, someone (possibly George Engleheart, of the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society, and later a contributor to Antiquity), was writing to the local papers urging that the Druids’ rights to celebrate the solstice should be curtailed. ADUB promptly lobbied the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, urging him to extend his influence ‘to the maintenance of peace within our little Mecca of Celtic idealism at Stonehenge’. The Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Charles Peers, agreed to let ‘these curious persons’ carry on as before, ‘as they do no harm to the stones, nor outrage conventional public decency’. Not, however, as of right: the power to include or to exclude now rested firmly with the civil servants; and that summer (1919), the caretaker prevented the Druids from holding an extra service on another day. In this he wassupported by Peers: ‘They have no claim to be treated as other than ordinary members of the public.’ Although Peers and his staff were scrupulously correct in their dealings with the Bond, they were not prepared to exempt them from payment on religious grounds, even though – as they were regularly reminded – places of worship were freely open to the public. It may not be coincidental that Peers was implementing a policy which, as principal architect of the 1913 Ancient Monuments Act, he had largely devised; a policy that specifically differentiated between ‘buildings’ (classed as ‘living’) and ‘ruins’ (classed as ‘dead’): ‘Buildings which are in use are still adding to their history; they are alive. Buildings which are in ruin are dead; their history is ended.’4 Keith Emerick has explored some of the repercussions of this classifi cation on inter-war heritage management; for present purposes, it is clear that Peers could have few sympathies with any contemporary religious use of a site whose ‘history has ended’. Next year, when the Druids asked for permission to hold services not just on the Solstice but on two further days as well, Peers instructed his staff to refuse: ‘Some limit must be set to this absurd and degrading nonsense.’ ADUB complained; Peers endorsed their letter with a memo to his subordinate: ‘it might be as well to inform these people that if attempts to take more than is granted are made, we may have to reconsider the concessions already given’. In the event, they were eventually given permission for the extra days, but were still required to pay the entrance fee. The Bond responded by refusing to hold their service at Stonehenge at all, transferring their activities to the ‘Double Circle’ instead. Here, in the rain, Reid ‘made some strong remarks on the action of the Government in refusing to allow them inside Stonehenge’, and gave a lecture which, according to the Salisbury Times, was ‘listened to very attentively by a good number urry of correspondence between the Offi ce of Works and Downing Street. Once again, the government agreed to let the Druids use the Stones but insisted on payment. Once again, the Druids made a point of refusing to pay for access to what they considered to be a place of worship: ‘You persist in regarding Cathoir Ghall [i.e. Stonehenge] as a Circus or Museum’, the First Commissioner was told. Things had not changed for the better since the government had taken control of Stonehenge: ‘Tyranny, greater than that of the private citizen, is a great factor of State Control.’ Insult was added to injury at the 1922 solstice, when a group of soldiers from the nearby Larkhill base performed a mock-ceremony wearing white sheets and false beards, allegedly with the connivance of the caretaker. The Druids were ferociously indignant at this ‘burlesque’, and refused to hold their solstice service there the following year. ‘Pass this word along to the People’, said the handbill they produced, ‘and demand that all Ancient Rights of the People shall be respected. Judge between the Druids and all who stand within the Coward’s Castle.’ blackwellpublishing/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter/9781405155045/9781405155052_4_011.pdf
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 17:19:48 +0000
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