In the mid-eighteenth century, a pioneering antiquarian by the name of William Stukeley published "Stonehenge: A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids." In this book, Stukeley believed Stonehenge was a temple built by ancient Druids, who were the priestly class of the Celtic people, long before Rome conquered Britain. He saw the monument as part of a sacred landscape, aligned with solar and celestial events, and argued that the layout of the stones had religious and symbolic meaning, particularly in relation to nature and the sun. Notably, he even described the site as resembling a serpent form when mapped out with nearby earthworks, thus interpreting the whole area as a kind of Druidic cosmological diagram.

Though it is now known in modern times that Stonehenge predates the Druids by at least a thousand years, Stukeley’s work was enormously influential in associating Stonehenge to spiritual and mystical ideas as he was among the first in history to study and document the site. His detailed drawings and measurements helped preserve knowledge of Stonehenge during a time when the site was deteriorating and overlooked. Prior to his contributions, it was uncommon for people to excavate the earth looking for artifacts or prior civilizations as a means to learn more about history. Thus, Stukeley was a pioneer figure in what is British Archaeology today (Neale).

Besides being one of the first serious antiquarians, William Stukeley was a noteworthy figure in British history. Early in his life, he showed interest in mapmaking and sketching, which would come in handy later in life, but worked in his father’s law firm soon after school. Realizing he was not interested in his father’s career, he attended Corpus Christi College in Cambridge to primarily study medicine, but also became interested in botany, natural philosophy, antiquities, and astronomy. Upon graduating, he went to London to learn more about the medical field and later practiced medicine in Lincolnshire. Interestingly, one of the friends he made along the way was Sir Isaac Newton. Stukeley was the first to write a biography about Newton and witnessed the apple falling from a tree that sparked the theory of gravity. Years later, Stukeley stopping practicing medicine and was ordained in the Church of England, ultimately enabling him to study the religious and historical aspects of Stonehenge (Neale).

The surrounding area of Stonehenge, Wiltshire, was largely rural, made up of farmers, shepherds, and laborers in the eighteenth century. Most people living near Stonehenge were part of an economy in which they relied on agriculture, had limited access to education, and wouldn’t have understood the significance of Stonehenge the way educated elites did. There were no tourist facilities or protections for the site at the time, and locals sometimes took stones for building material or allowed livestock to roam among them. There was little sense of “preservation” as the ancient monuments were seen more as curiosities or nuisances than as national treasures (“Wiltshire”).

Sources

Neale, Fiona. “William Stukeley’s Stonehenge.” University of Glasgow Library Blog, 7, Nov. 2015, https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/william-stuk...'s%20studies%20had%20convinced%20him,which%20had%20since%20become%20lost.

“Wiltshire.” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Wiltshire.