{"id":144164,"date":"2018-06-21T06:19:51","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T06:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/summer-solstice-thousands-gather-at-stonehenge-for-longest-day\/"},"modified":"2018-06-21T06:19:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T06:19:51","slug":"summer-solstice-thousands-gather-at-stonehenge-for-longest-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/summer-solstice-thousands-gather-at-stonehenge-for-longest-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer solstice: Thousands gather at Stonehenge for longest day"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sunrise at Stonehenge\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/17C3\/production\/_102138060_stonehenge3.jpg\"\/><figcaption>Image caption                                      Thousands turned up to watch the sunrise                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Thousands of people gathered at Stonehenge for the summer solstice, as the sun rose amid clear skies.<\/p>\n<p>About 9,500 people were at the Neolithic monument to greet the start of the longest day of the year, according to Wiltshire Police.<\/p>\n<p>The sun appeared behind the Heel Stone at 04:52 BST to cheering and applause from the crowd.<\/p>\n<p>The summer solstice is one of the rare occasions that English Heritage opens up the stones for public access. <\/p>\n<p>As with last year&#039;s event, Wiltshire Police confirmed it had stepped up security with armed police on patrol. <\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Image caption                                      Police say attendance was down on last year                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Although thousands attended the solstice, the force said 3,500 fewer people came to watch the sunrise compared with 2017. <\/p>\n<p>Supt Dave Minty, Wiltshire Police&#039;s overnight commander, said behaviour at the stones was &quot;brilliant&quot;, with no arrests made.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The sunrise was amazing, and we don&#039;t see many of those,&quot; he added.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;People seem to have adapted really well to the heightened level of security and they&#039;ve been really patient with it.&quot; <\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Image caption                                      Attendees reported a festival atmosphere among those witnessing the sunrise                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On the summer solstice, the sun rises behind the Heel Stone, the ancient entrance to the Stone Circle, and rays of sunlight are channelled into the centre of the monument.<\/p>\n<p> It is believed that solstices have been celebrated at Stonehenge for thousands of years.<\/p>\n<p>The site holds special significance for members of the Druid and Pagan community, who perform rituals and celebrations at the summer and winter solstices. <\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Image caption                                      Mouth painter Tom Yendell captured the scene as the sun rose                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image caption Thousands turned up to watch the sunrise Thousands of people gathered at Stonehenge for the summer solstice, as the sun rose amid clear skies. About 9,500 people were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":144165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}