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Goodwood Revival Stonehenge: White-robed Druids, Cardboard Obama, and Then We Digress!

Stonehenge in Sussex, at the Goodwood Revival.

Stonehenge in Sussex, at the Goodwood Revival.

A Stonehenge replica was built for the Goodwood Revival, an annual festival of motor racing in the mode racing’s heydey, in the middle of the last century.* We don’t know much about this replica: what it was made of, just whose idea it was, but here is some promotional text from the Goodwood Revival website:

“You can’t just build a full-scale replica of Stonehenge for no reason, so if you can’t build one in the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Britain’s Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids when can you do it at all?

Yes, we’re continuing Goodwood’s tradition of stunning displays and authentic set dressing with the most extreme example to date, in the shape of a magnificent Stonehenge installation at the entrance to the Rolex Drivers’ Club.

Commissioned by Lord March to be larger than the original (for greater visibility as there will be more people at the Goodwood Revival in September than lived in the entire UK 5,000 years ago), the installation will also be a celebration of the pre-historic monument’s 99 years in safe hands, after it was bought at auction in 1915 by Cecil Chubb for £6,600 (£500,000 in today’s money).”

An article published during the Revival said,

“Sussex or Salisbury Plain? When the sun rose this morning you could be forgiven for wondering as the first rays of a beautiful September morning illuminated the famous stones of Stonehenge.

Well it was at least a very fair representation of the world famous monument. Complete with a host of white-robed Druids. And one cardboard cutout of Barack Obama…”

A druid and President Obama, with possibly an altar stone behind them

A druid and President Obama, with possibly an altar stone behind them

Druids, but no virgins, at least! The druids were actors, and the cut-out was a reference to the U.S. president’s recent visit to Stonehenge. Listen: do you think this could be a new trend? Where once there were Easter Island heads (called moai) placed in or near Stonehenge replicas, will there now be representations of US President Barack Obama?? Stay tuned. We’ll be monitoring this for you around the clock!

At any rate, having a look at the Stonehenge itself, we see that although the entrance trilithon is much too wide, the stones are realistic, and it appears that the three lintel stretch of the outer circle may have been included. This looks to be an exceptionally good replica as far as it goes—true, no bluestones or inner trilithon horseshoe—but capturing the general shapes and look of the old stones as they have counts for a lot. And as you all know, we have a weakness for the sheer ridiculousness of the druid connection, not to mention a cardboard cutout of, well, anyone, really. That’s new in henging.

Score: 8 druids! We still question whether it is actually larger than the original, but why quibble? The real question is, where is it now?? Was it sold, stored, shipped to the White House? True, probably not, but just think how it would look on the lawn there! Come to think of it, Buckingham Palace could use a Stonehenge… How about Red Square? And who built this? Are they building more? Inquiring minds want to know.

Before we go, the mention of moai reminded us of a crucial but unrelated issue to chew over. How many of you use or have used emoji? You know, those little pictures 🍯 🚀🎩 that people pepper their online conversations with? We have discovered an abominable fact: Apple’s, and perhaps every company’s, emoji include an Easter Island head 🗿, but do not include any kind of Stonehenge image!!! Who makes these choices? We mean, does that seem right to you?? More importantly, how can we get it fixed? Your advice is welcome!

And people say we don’t address important issues on our blog! This is one that’s worth marching in the streets for. But until then, or until the next time, gentle readers, happy henging! 👽

*Thought: wouldn’t the Cursus actually work better for racing?

 

Another Movie Replica: The Black Knight, 1954

photos are stills from this clip posted on TCM

We were going to do one post listing all the movies we know of so far that contain Stonehenge in some form. We’d already posted the movies This Is Spinal Tap and The Colour of Magic, and we thought we could round up the ones that were left in one quick post. Then we watched this video again. Lolz!!!1! It deserves a post of its own!

A synopsis of this section of the movie (from a full synopsis on this page) reads: “John, as the Black Knight, rides off to summon Arthur’s knights, as Linet, the abbot and the remaining monks are taken by the Vikings to the mysterious rocks of Stonehenge, where they are readied as sacrifice. Arthur, John and the knights arrive in time to rescue Linet and the clergymen and destroy Stonehenge.” But, trust us, this does not capture the madness of the wildly dancing girls, the heavily made-up so-called virgin about to be sacrificed, and the wild priests or druids presiding over it, let alone the dramatic rescue of said virgin and the about-to be roasted monks. Don’t you just hate those evil pagans?! 😉

Then, of course, there’s the pulling down of the stones at the end of the sequence. They come down quite easily,  pulled by knights on horses.  Think how that would have impacted on Britain’s tourist trade! Reminds us of National Lampoon’s European Vacation in which Chevy Chase backs into one trilithon and the whole thing goes down like dominoes. D***ed Americans!!

Score for this replica: 7½ druids. We think they did a fine job of mocking up what Stonehenge might have looked like long ago, considering it was 1954. As a matter of fact, we think they may have used the Maryhill replica (see here for our post on that one) for this aerial shot and just mocked up the parts they needed for the close-ups. Still, nicely done.

Our thanks to Bob Bradlee aka StonehengeGuy for steering us to this classic Stonehenge depiction. It is good to laugh!

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Romans vs. Druids, a Stonehenge Diorama!

Romans_1.sized

from Stonehenge Collectables.com, with kind permission

Oh, goody! You know how sometimes things can be so wrong and yet so right? The diorama above, built years ago by a Canadian (you know how they are–ya just never know what the heck they’ll do next! ;-)) and now in the collection of Stonehenge collector Bob Bradlee, is that kind of thing.

Ah, the wonders of Twitter! That is where we ran across Mr. Bradlee aka StonehengeGuy and his website Stonehenge Collectables.com. In our unrelenting search for Stonehenge models and replicas we have seen all kinds of Stonehenge post cards, art, t-shirts, etc., but somehow we never knew there were people out there lapping them all up! Now we know.

A few of the things he has picked up along the way are, like this one, hengy enough to cross over into Clonehenge territory. As anyone who knows us must surely guess, we love this one! [more photos of it here]Yes, those are actual little Roman soldiers with shields and helmets and swords, fighting, yes, oh yes, druids unclad from the waist up (except for the women) using clubs, bows and arrows and double-headed axes! It is the battle for Stonehenge, a battle that almost certainly never took place.

We don’t know what the model Stonehenge itself is made of (see comments for that info), but it’s nicely done. No bluestones, of course, and no ditch and bank, but the monument is, realistically, already in ruins in the time of the druids, so there is no implied assertion that the druids built Stonehenge. Refreshing.

Score: 6 druids. I’ll bet the staff of the Wiltshire Heritage Museum are dying to get their hands on this baby! By the way, here’s what worries us, looking at this: if the druids were magical like so many people say, why didn’t they defeat the Romans when they conquered England? Why couldn’t they levitate them and drop them into the English Channel or something? Could it have been the irresistible lure of the tourist lira?

Our thanks to StonehengeGuy. We look forward to seeing more from his collection, but we doubt he can beat this!

The Colour of Magic; Virgin Sacrifice Gone Awry!

COM clonehenge 3from Youtube

We have long thought that if there is a Heaven (and we could get into it), it must consist of new, unread Discworld books, and friendly people who like to discuss them as much as we do.  Discworld author Terry Pratchett has given us many hours of happiness, and we were bowled over to find, upon renting the Discworld movie The Colo(u)r of Magic last week, that it includes a Stonehenge replica.

On the Discworld, stone circles are the computers and druids are the IT specialists and hardware consultants. (Yes, there is a Discworld and Pratchett Wiki. Get over it.) Here’s a druid line from The Light Fantastic: “They’re having trouble with the big circles up on the Vortex Plains. So they say, anyway; I wished I had a bronze torc for every user who didn’t read the manual.”

In the scene above, Twoflower, the Discworld’s first tourist, is intervening in a druid ritual, for although he appreciates its ethnic charm and primitive simplicity, he objects to the actual killing of the virgin . . . The druids aren’t thrilled to have him interfere, and the plot carries on from there.

Silly stuff, definitely, but as always Pratchett uses silly stuff to address serious issues sideways and to lampoon cliches and human foibles. Score for this replica: 6 druids. [Later correction by one P.G.: 7 Wizzards and an ArchChancellor] It’s just some trilithons, but one of those  druids is awarded for the gentle jab at society’s  romanticising of the henge builders and users. But without all that romanticising there wouldn’t be so many replicas, now, would there? And then where would we be?