Through your eyes: 150 years of Stonehenge in pictures | Art and design

 Posted on June 21, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  722 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Through your eyes: 150 years of Stonehenge – in pictures

Last year, to celebrate 100 years since Stonehenge was given to the nation, English Heritage asked the public to share their photographs of the monument. More than 1,000 pictures, taken from 1875 onwards, were sent in and 148 are now going on show at the site. “It’s a fascinating look at the changing history of photography, posing, fashion, as well as Stonehenge,” says Susan Greaney, senior historian for English Heritage. Some of the images are very poignant. One shows a girl next to her 20-year-old brother in military uniform. “Sadly, this was the last time she saw him as he was killed in a bombing raid the following year,” says Greaney. “The images show what an enormous part Stonehenge plays in people’s memories.”

Your Stonehenge: 150 years of Personal Photos runs from 12 December to late August 2020

Main image: Christine Rashleigh-Berry’s photograph taken in Stonehenge in 1970 shows her son Roland with his dog Mr Baloo. Photograph: English Heritage

Sat 30 Nov 2019 12.00 EST Last modified on Thu 26 Mar 2020 10.26 EDT

  • 1890

    Susan Greaney, senior historian at English Heritage, says: “One of the oldest images contributed shows a group of men with a cart. It was sent in by the grandson of the man on the far right, who was a wheelwright at Heddington Common, near Calne, Wiltshire. He was commissioned to make an innovative new ‘spring’ wagon, and to celebrate the successful completion of the project they road-tested the cart by driving to Stonehenge. You can see that they are toasting the occasion with a glass of wine and smoking a pipe or cigar.”

  • 1980

    “Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi visited Stonehenge in 1980 with some of her students.”

  • 1932

    “My mother Hilary, aunts Kay and Peggie, and my grandmother Hilda. In those days people dressed up for outings!”

  • 1970

    “My son Roland with his dog, Mr Baloo.”

  • 1971

  • 2007

    “Summer solstice. My family were visiting from New Zealand and we thought we would go and see the stones.”

  • 1941

    “It’s a photo of me, then Joyce McLaren, and my brother, Sergeant Observer Douglas Brian McLaren. He was on leave from the RAF. I was 10 years old and my brother was 20. It was the last time we saw him. He was posted to Malta and reported missing, believed killed, during a bombing raid in North Africa on 8 January 1942.”

  • 1968

    “My best friend, Garth, checking his camera on a summer holiday visit.”

  • 1962

    “This is us, the Olivers from Cornwall, dressed in our finest camping clothes and Clarks sandals during our annual camping holiday. My dad took the picture with his Voigtlander Vito B camera.”

  • 1929

    “The stones were our private playground and the picture is of my brother John and aunt Nell. John died earlier this year, but before he did he confessed to having carved his initials on one of the stones of Stonehenge, though I have no idea which one.”

  • 1983

  • 1958

    “My father was the architect responsible for ancient monuments in England and Wales and took personal charge of the work at Stonehenge in the 50s. In the school holiday I was left to play around the stones. When the largest of the trilithons was lifted ready to be placed in position, it was held about 2ft above the original hole. I crawled into the hole to place a new 1958 penny there, before the stone was lowered again. No picture was taken of that, but this photo shows me studying my father’s drawing board. He always used an old wheelbarrow, it effectively providing a mobile desk!”
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