how sure are we that it *isn't* a farce? OK. the stones are groovy and all, but are they really more important than someone's home ... come to that, *your* home? What if someone suddenly appeared, had some funny ideas about the history of your street, and wanted to kick you out.

OK, nice new house somewhere else, but you like living where you where. You like it that your mate lives across the road. You like it that you can work, play or go to the pub with your mates without some long journey ...

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I know how pissed off I woukd be if someone decided I was living in a heritage zone, and that my style of living just wasn't appropriate to the percieved nature of the site, and I had to go ... and they could do it solely because they had the financial backing

don't forget the mass felling of the trees ... hundreds of years of actual tree history vs thousands of years of percieved history. I've protested against trees being cut down, I know Merrick has, I'm sure plenty others here to. Don't these trees matter because there's a henge there too?

What made me think the most is the possibilities for the Devil's Quiots just outside Oxford,
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/browse.php?site_id=577
- scene of the infamous GibbonTours expedition - only a few broken stones and a big henge at the mo', but with big reconstruction plans -

maybe in 50 years (cos that's all it takes for a population to forget), that site will take it's place in virtual heritage, despite the fact that it's also been reconstructed and rebuilt with an unavoidably modern eye and techniques ... Stonehenge as we know it is *not* the site of 2,500 BC, it's a reconstruction according to the fancy of the time

I go to Avebury as much as the next Gibbon, but I don't want my curiousity to be sated by a subtle form of ethnic cleansing.

RG