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| Stone Formation Archive 1987 |
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 Stone Formations news, views, gallery and archive brought to you by Weird Wiltshire Introduction Latest News News Archive Stonehenge Stonehenge Project Stonehenge 360 Avebury Saviours Stones Village Solstice Wayland Smithy Long Barrow Woodhenge Gallery Summer Solstice Gallery 2002 Summer Solstice Gallery 2004 Postcards Wallpaper Links  |
First published on June 25, 1987 FORTY-THREE hippies were arrested early on Sunday morning as they charged police lines in an attempt to reach Stonehenge, but their more peaceful companions were later allowed free access. The surprise tactics by authorities meant the hippies, numbering about 500, were given permission to enter the Stones at 7am after the Solstice ceremony, but only on condition that they dispersed by 8am. By the usual 9.30am opening time the site had been cleared without further incident and shortly afterwards the 43 hippies who had been in custody for breaching the peace were released without charge. Apart from a few skirmishes the summer solstice ritual, performed by solemn, white-robed Druids and watched by 500 ticket holders, was a peaceful affair with seemingly good humour between hippies and the 350 police present from five counties. However, the Druids, 'drawn by affinity to a sacred place,' were disturbed by the strong Press contingent and the noisy police helicopter hovering overhead. Douglas Reid, of Amesbury, a regular ceremony-goer since 1937, echoed their thoughts by saying the event had lost its original Pagan feeling of an attachment to the Mother earth, becoming no more than a carnival with football-type crowds. At times there were also three Microlight aircraft circling in the dawn sky high above the worshippers. Earlier on Saturday evening police were predicting trouble as large numbers of hippies gathered at Devil's Ditch near Cholderton, on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border. At first police warned that they would not be allowed near Stonehenge, but following several stone and bottle-throwing incidents, police made a sudden about face, giving them a police escort and grouping the, at times, noisy crowd on the A344 near the Stonehenge car park. However, Wiltshire's Chief Constable Donald Smith, who described the operation as a headache he would rather not have, said the decision was unrelated to the stone-throwing incident and was simply a matter of tactical options. "From a police point of view it's been a successful operation. We started off early in the day with 500 hippies threatening all sorts of things and in the end it's been fairly peaceful." Mr Smith said it was a dramatic improvement on last year, which had seen the druid ceremony banned and more than 200 arrests in the few days leading up to June 21: "Each year I draw comfort from the lessening of the situation." Catherine Garrish, of English Heritage, which owns and maintains the site, said it was a successful beginning to the gradual return of the traditional Druid ceremonies. Back to 1987 index |
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