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Stonehenge during Fall Equinox

Just booked our 2024 tour and discovered the morning we go to Stonehenge is the Autumn Equinox. Anyone have any experience with stonehenge on this day? Internet searches have lots of special tours that day and "Druids and Pagans gather at Stonehenge early in the morning to mark the Spring and Autumn Equinox".

I emailed RS tours and they basically say, we don't anticipate any changes, will let you know closer to the time if we change anything. We were there in 1997, but were looking forward to seeing it again early in the am before it gets too crowded. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind seeing a few Druid Dances that morning, but if its a zoo...I would rather book a different date or different tour.

Posted by
8340 posts

If I remember correctly, the Druids did a great job of claiming religious significance at Stonehenge (even though there really isn’t any historical data to support that was the use) and are allowed to enter beyond the ropes that keep people back from the stones on those days. I would anticipate extra crowds and some access issues are possible. If you are worried, maybe go for a different date.

Posted by
332 posts

The “Druids” have been around since the 1920s. That is the level of connection they have with the builders of Stonehenge.

Posted by
5673 posts

Although the original Druids were of course around at the same kind of time as Stonehenge was constructed, before being basically wiped out by the Romans.
Yes it is unproveable whether or not the original Druids used Stonehenge for their rituals. It is not unreasonable to conjecture that they "might" have.

Posted by
2942 posts

"Stonehenge" by Spinal Tap sums things up nicely:

In ancient times,
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people, the Druids
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the living rock, of Stonehenge
Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell
Where the banshees live and they do live well
Stonehenge! Where a man's a man
And the children dance to the Pipes of Pan
Hey!
Stonehenge! 'Tis a magic place
Where the moon doth rise with a dragon's face
Stonehenge! Where the virgins lie
And the prayers of devils fill the midnight sky
And you my love, won't you take my hand?
We'll go back in time to that mystic land
Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow
I will take you there, I will show you how
Oh!
And oh how they danced
The little children of Stonehenge
Beneath the haunted moon
For fear that daybreak might come too soon
And where are they now?
The little people of Stonehenge
And what would they say to us?
If we were here, tonight

Posted by
10203 posts

We were there a couple of days after the Autumn Equinox last year. There were still many people camping on the road nearby. We were on a Mad Maxx tour and there were many druids and pagans in Avebury.

Edited to add that the additional people added to the ambiance and didn’t interfere.

Posted by
96 posts

In 2014, we visited Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice. There were a few pagans celebrating there, but it was by no means a zoo. The next day, we visited Glastonbury Tor and there were pagans there engaged in a ritual dance, but again, it was a small number of people and just made our visit more interesting. I can't imagine that the Autumn Equinox would be different.