
National icon: It's a prehistoric monument that's become a national icon in the UK. Now Stonehenge is marking 100 years of being owned by the British public by harking back to nostalgic photographs of visits to the site in days gone by. Pictured: Helena Myska's family at Stonehenge in 1971.

Recreating photos: Myska was one of several people who were invited by English Heritage to recreate their family snapshots at Stonehenge. Now English Heritage is inviting people to send in their pictures from times past for their digital timeline seen at stonehenge100.co.uk/entries. Pictured here: Myska's family at Stonehenge in 2018.

Reliving the past: Sue Lane recreated an image of her family at Stonehenge in 1966. She was four years old and with her mother and grandparents; she recreated the image with her husband and daughter. "It was emotional to now be able to share my early experience with my daughter and husband," she says. "The old and new photos will now be displayed next to each other at home."

Life-changing: Bob Heyhoe discovered this photograph in his mother's possessions after she passed away. He says the experience of visiting Stonehenge as a young man in 1960 shaped him: "I was only a sort of impressionable 16- or 18-year-old and had never seen anything that big in my life before. It got me interested in the ancient people," he tells CNN Travel. He later visited ancient monuments across the world.

Back in touch: Heyhoe says it was thrilling to return to the stones: "To get back in contact with the actual rocks themselves was amazing because for the past 20-odd, 30-odd years you've been cordoned off and not allowed to clamber around them," he says. Special permission was given to English Heritage for the purposes of this photography project.

Link to the past: Ian Roure recreated an image of himself as a child in 1970. "My impression of Stonehenge when I was growing up was that it was extremely special -- a tangible link to our distant ancestors despite the mystery surrounding it," he says. "I found this photo after my mother passed away -- it was among many family photos that she had collected dating back to the early 1900s."

Stone stopover: The oldest photograph that's been recreated is courtesy of Rowland Allen and it dates back to 1955. "Every August, from when I was two to about fifteen, my family would stop at Stonehenge on our way to Cornwall," he says. "We'd sit down, get a flask out, have a picnic and muck about."

Remembering and recollecting: Allen is third from left in both photographs. The 1955 picture was taken before the great trilithon, seen behind the family group in the newest photo, was re-erected in 1958. "The visit helped me to remember family members who aren't here anymore -- and to create new memories for the new generation," he says.

Life-long love: Jane Vellender was five years old when she visited Stonehenge in the late 1960s. She credits the experience with sparking her interest in studying archeology years later. "Standing in the same spot this summer as I did nearly fifty years ago, I'm just aware of how fast time passes, and yet how the memory of being here then is still so fresh," she says.

Then-and-now: American Taney Roniger was only three years old in the first Stonehenge photograph, taken in 1971. Her mother photographed Roniger with her dad, who was stationed with the US army in Belgium. Roniger returned in 2018 with her husband, who wore the same sweater that her father did in the original. "It felt like my parents were with me," she says.


