This Summer Solstice I fulfilled a long-held ambition to take part in an English tradition and gather with others to watch the sun come up on the longest day. Stonehenge — too busy, too famous — did not appeal. Instead I chose Avebury, the stone circle in Wiltshire which only attracts small numbers.

On Midsummer’s Eve we headed West, the car piled high with blankets and supplies to get us through a night in a field. Spirits were high: after weeks of cloud and rain, it was a perfect summer’s day. Outside London, the countryside was exploding with greenery; before long we were approaching Avebury.

Then the bollards started. The yellow plastic cones lined the verges, tilted in a variety of directions. Some had fallen into the road, making drivers swerve into the opposite lane to avoid them. They stood as sentinels in lay-bys and field gateways, anywhere and everywhere man, woman or child could stop for a call of nature or an emergency phone call.

In Avebury itself, an operation designed to limit the number of visitors was in full swing. Two of the village’s major roads had been closed, along with all possible stopping places for a diameter of several miles. The National Trust car park, being the only place to leave a vehicle, quickly filled up. It was guarded by a posse of young, stressed police officers who clearly thought the world would be a better place if the public just stayed home. 

We drove on in search of a place to leave the car until dawn and then sleep for a couple of hours before driving home. But it was as if the area had been commandeered by an occupying force: orange plastic barriers shut off a leafy layby generous enough to host a dozen sun worshippers. Small roads were barricaded off even to residents and their visitors. 

Given these conditions, you’ll understand why I won’t disclose where we did park. The walk back to Avebury involved navigating traffic on a road without pavements. A young man took pity at the sight of two strangers laden with bags and gave us a lift. He had grown up locally and seen the Solstice bring increasing restrictions. Like others we spoke to, he remembered vans lining the Ridgeway.

The policy of closing off roads around the sacred sites at Solstice was introduced in 2022. Wiltshire Council, working in conjunction with The National Trust and Avebury Parish Council, justifies it on the grounds of “public safety” and “to mitigate the risk of damage to the landscape”. At Stonehenge, even byways and footpaths are closed. 

On the face of it, limiting peaceable gatherings that are about celebrating people’s connection with the land in order to protect the land is perverse, and closing parking places at the time when they’re most needed is bizarre. 

Since Covid, local authorities have taken it upon themselves to find new ways of regulating the use of public space

But we live in strange times. Since Covid, local authorities have taken it upon themselves to find new ways of regulating the use of public space. Low Traffic Neighbourhoods were introduced on a tide of public health safetyism, with planters blocking roads to Stop Covid. Then, aided by Active Travel funding from central government, the same planters were used by councils up and down the land to close roads for a variety of reasons — curb traffic congestion, combat climate change and increase child safety. They are united by an underlying trend which makes our ability to move about and assemble in public space increasingly conditional on what the authorities think best. 

No publicity-attracting bans or changes in legislation have been announced: the slow death of public space is taking place quietly and incrementally. It varies according to location and comes in a host of virtuous guises. No rights have been explicitly removed but our ability to exercise fundamental rights such as freedom of association and freedom of movement is being progressively curbed. See, for example, Birmingham City Council’s transport plan which proposes to achieve the city-wide elimination of cars through the removal of parking places. 

By an unfortunate coincidence, the rucksack I took to Avebury which had lain in the back of a cupboard yielded a 2020 copy of The Evening Standard with a cover of Dominic Cummings wearing a facemask. The picture triggered a memory of watching incredulously as two police officers crossed a deserted park to tell me, a solitary woman sitting writing under a tree, that I was not permitted to occupy public space. For me, everything changed in that moment.

The gathering among the stones at Avebury was lovely. Little clusters of people sat on blankets chatting and there was a little light drumming: sound systems are not done in pagan circles. Some had dressed for the occasion and a few tourists stared wonderingly at women wearing golden antlers and fairy skirts. A couple of bare-chested men practised their stick-twirling. It was quieter than a village fete but, just to be on the safe side, a policeman filmed the proceedings on his smartphone. 

As the sun went down, some locals arrived to swell the numbers and a group of players enacted a pageant which was something to do with the growth of a giant mushroom. Happy Solstice! they cried. A short, chilly night under the stars followed before we joined the crowd on the ridge to watch the sun rise.

Driving away from Avebury in the golden light of dawn, we saw lines of cars parked in the surrounding roads, defying the restrictions. Some of them had been left a fine by way of a Solstice gift. 

Freedom, as nobody ever said, is lost a bollard at a time.