Held in private hands for centuries, UK barrister Cecil Chubb’s gift gave Stonehenge back to British people

STONEHENGE had been in private hands for centuries. But a 100 years ago today, British barrister Cecil Chubb gifted the ancient neolithic monument to the public.

The ancient neolithic stone circle of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, once held privately, was handed back to the British public 100 years ago today.

MANY of the great tourist attractions of the world are in government hands or at least held by organisations as a sort of trust for the public. But up until a century ago today Britain’s world famous neolithic monument Stonehenge was in private hands.

On October 26, 1918, the owner Cecil Chubb, a wealthy barrister, formally handed over the monument to the British people.

He had written a letter to the British minister of public works Alfred Mond offering to give the prehistoric stone circle to the British people.

“To me, who was born close to it and during my boyhood and youth visited it at all hours of the day and night, under every conceivable condition of weather — In driving tempests of hail, rain and snow, fierce thunder storms, glorious moonlight and beautiful sunshine — It always has had an inexpressible charm,” he wrote.

Sir Cecil Chubb on board RMS Aquitania in May 1926.

Chubb’s only proviso was that the entry fee shouldn’t exceed one shilling and that during of the war the proceeds would go to the Red Cross. As the war ended only 17 days later, the Red Cross probably didn’t see much of the money and, in 1923, the government declared free admission. But otherwise Chubb’s wish that the monument should be owned by the nation has been honoured.

The monument was built in stages between about 3000 and 1500BC. There have been many theories as to the reason why it was erected, including as a religious temple and a gathering place for rituals relating to the reverence for dead ancestors. But since the people who made it had no written language we may never know.

It spent thousands of years in common ownership before it fell into disuse and its original purpose was lost to history. When the Romans occupied parts of Britain from the 1st to the 5th century they built a fort nearby and citizens stationed in the Roman province took trips to visit the site, which by then was a ruin.

In medieval times people wondered what it was for, many assumed it had something to do with the Druids, an ancient religion believed to have come into existence long after the builders of Stonehenge died out.

An 1800 engraving of Stonehenge.

An open air concert at Stonehenge, from the Sketch newspaper in 1896.

Legends also existed that the stones were raised by Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend. By the time this was first written down, in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae in the 12th century, the monument stood on lands owned by the Abbey of Amesbury.

When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1540 he gave the land to his brother-in-law Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford. Ownership passed hands several times over the course of the ensuing centuries, with most owners allowing free public access as visitor numbers increased and archaeological interest grew.

The problem was that people were endangering Stonehenge, scratching initials into the sarsen stones and even chipping off bits for souvenirs. It was not until the 19th century that people thought to protect the stones from further deterioration and perhaps even re-erecting some of the structure. In 1797 one of the trilithons (sets of three stones) toppled and in 1900 there was a public outcry when a sarsen stone fell and the lintel it supported snapped.

At that time the site was owned by Sir Edward Antrobus. Under pressure to restore the monument he tried to sell it, preferably to the government, but his asking price was too high. To help pay for the upkeep of the stones, particularly the re-erection of the tallest trilithon on the site in 1901, he set up a fence around the monument and began charging admission. After his death in 1915 (his only heir had died in the war) the land was sold at auction to Chubb for a mere £6000. He then handed it over to the public in 1918, which allowed restoration work to begin.

Building works at Stonehenge in 1964 raise a stone that fell over in 1963.

In 1919 the Office of Public Works began carrying out surveys and planning restoration. From 1919 to 1920 a number of stones were put back into place. In 1927 the National Trust began a program of acquiring the lands adjacent to Stonehenge to restore them to grasslands, stopping development around the ancient circle and removing structures such as a World War I aerodrome.

In 1958 three of the sarsen stones were set into concrete bases and in 1963 another sarsen stone toppled, necessitating an operation in 1964 to set it back in place.

The National Heritage Act of 1983 saw the site come under the administration of the new body named English Heritage. In recent times English Heritage closed the roadway running past Stonehenge and created a centre for visitors which opened to the public in 2013.