17). The ad-hoc way in which these excavations took
place meant that rather limited records were kept. In 1956 Atkinson published
his popular account of the site, which was subsequently revised several
times and reprinted by Penguin. Atkinson pulled together all of the stratigraphic
information and established a three-phase sequence for the site (Atkinson
1956). However, being a popular book, it contained rather little of the
primary evidence. In the early 1990s, Hawley's and Atkinson's records
were collected and worked through under the aegis of the Trust for Wessex
Archaeology, resulting in the definitive publication (Lawson 1992).
In the meanwhile, visitor numbers continued to soar, and
by 1962 the grass in the centre of the site had died off. Eventually,
the authorities replaced it with orange gravel. By the mid-1970s, over
600,000 people visited Stonehenge annually, climbing to 815,000 in 1977,
when the stones were finally closed off, and a green tarmac walkway across
the earthwork enclosure put in. From 1976 to 1979, a governmental Stonehenge
Working Party sat, and produced a series of recommendations, including
the closure of the A344 and the removal of the car park and visitor facilities
to Stonehenge Bottom. At around the same time, the Royal Commission on
Historical Monuments undertook (and published) an inventory of sites of
archaeological sites within the environs of Stonehenge (RCHME 1979). This
in turn was to lead in the early 1980s to the Trust for Wessex Archaeology's
Stonehenge Environs Project, directed by Julian Richards, and intended
to put the monuments in their context through fieldwalking and sample
excavation (Richards 1990). So the late 1970s saw a growing awareness
of the landscape context of Stonehenge, and a recognition that Stonehenge
should be presented to the public in this wider context. The Stonehenge
Working Party compiled its report in 1979, but this was never published,
as it coincided with the coming to power of a new Conservative government,
which intended radical changes in the management of the national heritage.
Under the authority of the new English Heritage organisation, a Stonehenge
Study Group sat, and produced a report which outlined possibilities for
the future management of the area (HBMCE 1984). These included recommendations
that the surrounding landscape be drawn into the presentation of Stonehenge,
and options for resolving the issues of road access and the location of
an interpretive centre.
It was also in the 1980s that the question of access to
Stonehenge became considerably more problematic. In 1974, a free festival
had been organised in a field immediately to the north-west of Stonehenge.
From 1975 onwards, the People's Free Festival at Stonehenge was one of
the largest alternative gatherings in Britain. While many of those present
simply came for a good time, there were others like Sid Rawle who held
that Stonehenge was a spiritual centre, central to a new way of life which
was then emerging (Rosenburger 1991). For several years the festival was
effectively permitted by the authorities. In June of each year, the National
Trust would erect barbed-wire entanglements to discourage access to any
but the festival field (Chippindale 1986). On the solstice morning, the
Druids would be allowed in to the circle, and on the afternoon people
from the festival could go in and perform rites, baptisms and marriages
of their own. As a nomadic way of life developed among the alternative
community, meeting each year at Stonehenge became a fixed point in a seasonal
cycle. With the economic recession and social security cuts of the early
1980s, many of these people gave up city life, and took to the roads.
The tents of the early Stonehenge festival were replaced by buses and
vans. Increasingly, people who were constantly on the road began to move
from one festival to another throughout the summer, and the idea of a
'hippie convoy' began to develop in the popular imagination and the tabloid
press. In 1982 it was first suggested that travellers should move on from
Stonehenge to the pe