When will Stonehenge’s lockdown end?

Another year, another row about Stonehenge. A rather sad piece on the BBC News website describes how its lacklustre custodians, English Heritage, had to cancel a live feed of the sunrise on the day of the solstice due to unspecified ‘safety concerns’ when a few people were seen climbing over a low fence to access the stones. More than 200,000 people around the world had tuned in to the live stream ‘but ended up watching pre-recorded footage of the stones until the feed returned at around 5am, showing largely cloudy skies’.

Oh dear. But then disappointment has been hanging over our most famous prehistoric monument like a cloud for over a century. Since a generous landowner gifted it to the nation in 1918, successive governments – and more recently English Heritage – have done a remarkably bad job of looking after it.

For most of the 20th century, archaeological digs were given scant resources and no single museum established, at the site or elsewhere, to display and interpret any findings.