Oh No Not Stonehenge

When I started out it was Pete Glastonbury who did this both here and at Avebury, Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow but alas his health failed to the point where he could no longer go. He often reposts Nick Bull’s photos. I think no one gets what Bull is doing more than he does.

Lucas de Heere (1534–1584)

English: One of the earliest near-accurate depictions of Stonehenge.

Date between 1573 and 1575

watercolor

Oh boy! This will be long. Buckle in, or skip this. That's okay too.


For those who may not know, @sccccccram is referring to controversial plans for a tunnel through the Stonehenge landscape. To be clear the tunnel will not damage Stonehenge or affect the land immediately around it where tourists usually visit. 

The argument for the tunnel or one of them at least is that the busy road that goes by the site and is visible from the monument would be diverted to the tunnel and would no longer be visible to visitors (eventually, that is, once the construction is finished and the enormous scar heals).

Maybe the real reasons some people want the tunnel are that:

1. travelers on the now crowded road that at times barely crawls past Stonehenge would theoretically get where they're going faster once the tunnel is in. And of course some of those people are wealthy donors to the Tory Party who have second (or third or fourth) homes in Cornwall.

and 2. huge amounts of money will be made by the companies that build the tunnel and anyone they're pleased with, like politicians who helped make it happen.

In the interest of full disclosure some archaeologists are in favour of the tunnel too. (Including people I respect like Mike Pitts, former editor of British Archaeology Magazine and author of some books on Stonehenge, and Tess Machling, a brilliant thinker and archaeologist, I especially recommend her work on gold torcs!) It isn't clear why in many cases. Some are just tired of people treating Stonehenge as more special than other sites. Some just don't seem to like it that people other than themselves like pagans, partiers, and megalith lovers feel they have an interest in what archaeologists see as a site that is their domain. Some are disdainful about people who call Stonehenge sacred, for example.

Other archaeologists and historians, though, oppose the tunnel. Prominent Stonehenge archaeologist and author Michael Parker Pearson is one of them, as is historian and author Tom Holland. A major reason for this is that huge areas of the Stonehenge World Heritage site will be bulldozed and destroyed if it is built. Rescue archaeology would of course be done but that is never ideal and it does sometimes happen that in the interest of speed and economy archaeologists may come under pressure to hurry things along. And no one knows what else may be in the land now.

But of course archaeology isn't the only consideration. Other people all over the world love, revere, identify with, and care for Stonehenge. It shows up in many movies, television shows, songs, and stories, and as replicas in theme parks, mini golf corses, planetariums, cemeteries, gardens, and other kinds of sites around the world because it has so much meaning for so many people. 

Some people see it as a sacred place—the whole World Heritage Site, which includes many burial mounds of different types, an ancient avenue, and a cursus which is a huge earthwork of unknown significance. It is a landscape of prehistory and wonder. Those people genuinely feel that the digging of a tunnel through the chalk that underlies that landscape would be a desecration, even a rape of that sacred landscape.

Others, more like myself, may not have a faith that holds the site sacred but we have a more poetic outlook. Walking on that landscape as it is now, even with the A303 full of cars cutting through it, is still dreamy in a way. The land underfoot was certainly important to the ancient people who built and altered Stonehenge and hauled all those heavy stones there. During the digging and building of the tunnel there will be noise, there will be lights, it will be an industrial atmosphere. Certainly tourists who visit the Stonehenge landscape during that will have a disappointing experience.

And afterward, what then? The tunnel advocates like to say it will be better once soil is placed on top of the enormous concrete bunker that will be the tunnel. It will be more peaceful they say. But we will always know the tunnel is there, won't we? We won't be walking over the peaceful chalk landscape the ancients revered. We'll be walking over what is basically an industrial site with cars and trucks running beneath our feet. That's a huge qualitative difference to the experience oof anyone who likes to walk and imagine the past. And that's not even mentioning the entrances and exits of the tunnel. It's hard to believe they won't affect things, sounds-wise and lights-wise.

ONESCO, designator of World Heritage Sites, says it will remove the Stonehenge landscape's designation if the tunnel is built even though Stonehenge's absolutely unique form and engineering and its fame throughout the world make it an extremely important site. That should tell you something.

I think, and you wanted to know what I think, didn't you? I think that if the tunnel is built most of the world will see it as just another sign of the long and painful downfall of the once great nation that is the United Kingdom.

I have seen the deep joy and reverence that people have for Stonehenge, seen the pictures and videos of the solstice celebrations and have been present at an equinox celebration. I know people who identify with it closely. If the government ignores all that and considers only science and money in its decision, it is another statement that it cares nothing for the soul of its people. You may keep a rich ruling class that way but you don't get a happy creative people who love their country with all their heart. You don't get a great nation.