Stonehenge was once sold at auction

Pull up a chair. Tonight's page: Stonehenge.

Its first ditch was dug around five thousand years ago. Before the Great Pyramid was even begun.

The giant stones, called sarsens, weigh around twenty-five tonnes each. About four elephants.

In 2020, scientists tested a core of stone kept for sixty years by a man who helped repair it. It matched a wood fifteen miles away.

The smaller bluestones came much further. From the hills of Wales, around a hundred and forty miles away.

And in 2024, the great Altar Stone was traced to the far north of Scotland. Over four hundred miles.

How did they move them? Nobody knows for sure. Sledges, rollers, rope, and a great many people.

But we do know why it faces the way it does. It lines up with the midsummer sunrise, and the midwinter sunset.

Nearby, archaeologists found a huge village, full of pig bones. Many from pigs killed in midwinter. Great feasts.

Now for the odd bit. In 1915, Stonehenge was sold at auction.

A local man, Cecil Chubb, bought it for six thousand six hundred pounds. Some say as a present for his wife.

Three years later, he gave it away, to the nation. And was given a title for his trouble.

Close the book. Keep your nose to the wind.