Kavishaila in Kuppalli, Bangalore, India: beautiful photo by @nikhilvshetty on Instagram, used with permission.

A joyous solstice to everyone! Whether it is winter or summer where you are, the year is about to turn. And although Stonehenge somehow manages to get itself into the news many times a year, it is at the solstices that we hear most about it and see its picture spread across the net. Young and few and far between must be those people who actually learn anything new from all those solstice articles that show up rewritten as if new twice a year without fail.

That is why you were wise to come to Clonehenge this solstice. We won’t drone on about pagan ritual or the exact moment the sun hovers over the Tropic of Capricorn. We will drone on about other things, especially about Stonehenges—the ones that aren’t really Stonehenge.

It has been a big year for them. People are making more Stonehenges than ever, and even at Stonehenge itself in September, both a Stonehenge cake and Jeremy Deller’s inflatable bouncy Stonehenge made an appearance. There was a Stonehenge-making contest in Shrewsbury, and English Heritage had one, too, but we’re not sure that last received any submissions. And people everywhere kept making Stonehenges large and small.

Plus, just when we thought there couldn’t be any more large permanent replicas out there [Well, to be honest, we no longer ever think that. We’re just saying it for effect.], we learned about three: in Sumatra, India, and the Philippines! We hope to do posts about each of those and any on the Large Permanent Replicas list that we haven’t done posts about, in the near future, but until then, feast your eyes on the lovely photo by Nikhil Shetty at the top of this post. That is the one in Bengaluru, India, and it has an interesting story behind it.

A note: a lot has changed since the Clonehenge blog started in 2008. People’s habits and the internet itself have changed. It feels like the Clonehenge blog concept is getting as old and creaky as we are. We have had to accept that despite how fascinating we find the topic, most people don’t have time to read blog posts about inconsequential things like Clonehenges. The internet has endless attractions now. Yet the large permanent henges, at least, deserve a few paragraphs of description and, if possible, explanation.

From here on in, we will probably only post here on this blog when there is some kind of Stonehenge replica news—it does happen! ask the people of Achill!—or when we find a new large permanent replica to add to the list. Otherwise, Clonehenge activity will take place on the Clonehenge Facebook group or Facebook page, or on the Clonehenge Twitter account. This has mostly been true for a while, but now we’re announcing it. So may it be.

In conclusion, we send out our best wishes to all for a joyous solstice, a happy Christmas if you celebrate it, a merry New Year celebration, and a wonderful year in 2019! And of course, until next time, dear gentle readers, happy henging!