From 1919 to 1920 restoration was carried out on Stonehenge by William Hawley and later Sir Frank Baines. Yup, that’s the source of the pictures I’m afraid. Boring but true. Here’s a newspaper clipping from the time…

For the sake of completion here’s the generally agreed timeline of Stonehenge that archaeologists have painstakingly constructed over generations:

The first stones installed were the ‘bluestones’. They seem to have appeared around 2300 BC. A couple of hundred years later they were removed for some unknown reason. The ‘sarsen stones’ entered the picture around 2100 BC, followed closely by several rings of bluestones. Finally, the massive circle of ‘sarsens’ was slipped into place to complete the henge. Over 4000 years, Stonehenge fell into a slow decline due to general neglect, theft, and the vicious claws of time.

And if there’s any doubt left in your mind as to whether the monument was built in the 50’s, here’s a picture of Stonehenge taken in 1885…

…and here’s one from 1914/15…

… oh, and a drawing of the site from around 1645…

I know that not all conspiracy theories are nonsense, it’s just a shame that there’s so many daft ones around. It means that if a real conspiracy is unearthed in the future, most people won’t believe it thanks to the decades of palpable guff that’s preceded it.

It’s a brave move to fly in the face of generations of archaeologists’ careful and dedicated study of Stonehenge. The governments of this world certainly are crafty and hi-tech, but to “secretly” build a monument, make it convincingly look thousands of years old (even to world experts) and make sure no one involved in the process or anyone who was alive before the 50’s says anything about it, is pretty far-fetched; even by conspiracy theory standards.