Barrister Cecil Chubb attended a Salisbury auction on September 21st, 1915 intending to buy curtains or chairs, but impulsively bought… Stonehenge. Yes, that Stonehenge.

Built by Neolithic and Bronze Age communities for purposes still debated today - ceremonial? religious? - for centuries the site had been treated less like a sacred monument and more like an inconvenient field ornament. Sheep grazed around it, tourists scratched their names into it, and the Aristocratic family who owned it had begun to charge entry to pay for fences and security guards to keep vandals away. But then their only heir died in the War, and Stonehenge was put up for sale.

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reveal how Chubb selflessly gave up the monument to the nation (though did effectively earn himself a knighthood in return); ask whatever happened to Chubb’s condition that ticket prices (now up to £70) would not exceed one shilling; and reveal what guests get to do in the ‘stone-circle experience’...

Further Reading:

• ‘The Man Who Bought Stonehenge And Gave it Away’ (Amusing Planet, 2022): https://www.amusingplanet.com/2022/08/the-man-who-bought-stonehenge-and-gave.html

• ‘Stonehenge Sold for £6,600 A Hundred Years Ago Today’ (English Heritage, 2015): https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/search-news/stonehenge-sold-100-years-ago/

• ‘Stonehenge Secrets: What Lies Beneath? | Holy Marvels’ (History, 2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJOmC4vMuxI

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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.

Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.

Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026.

#1910s #BC #Strange #UK

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