On September 21, 1915, British lawyer Cecil Chubb attends an auction in Salisbury, England, reportedly to buy furniture. Instead, he buys Stonehenge, the mysterious Neolithic monument located in southern England. His winning bid is 6,600 British pounds, a little more than $1 million adjusted for inflation today.
Stonehenge and a 30-acre triangle of adjoining land—listed as Lot 15 at the auction held at the Palace Theatre—had been privately owned by the family of Sir Edmund Antrobus, whose death in 1915 put the estate on the auction block.
Chubb, born only a few miles from Stonehenge, said he had no plans on bidding on the landmark that day; he just did so on a whim. “While I was in the room, I thought a Salisbury man ought to buy it, and that is how it was done,” Chubb told a newspaper. His wife, Mary, was reportedly expecting him to come home with household items and was less than thrilled with the surprise purchase.
The Man Who Bought Stonehenge
In 1915, Cecil Chubb went to an auction to buy some dining chairs but returned home with the ultimate impulse buy—Stonehenge.
In 1915, Cecil Chubb went to an auction to buy some dining chairs but returned home with the ultimate impulse buy—Stonehenge.
Three years later, on October 26, 1918, Chubb deeded Stonehenge to the British people as a gift. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George honored Chubb in 1919 by naming him Sir Cecil Chubb, First Baronet of Stonehenge.
The deed stipulated that the public would have access to Stonehenge for a modest admission fee, that the monument would be preserved as closely as possible and that new construction nearby would be tightly restricted. Stonehenge is now part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites.
The British government started a major renovation of Stonehenge in 1919 to straighten stones and reset them in concrete. Maintenance and preservation of the historic tourist attraction continue a century later.
