Thousands gather to celebrate the winter solstice at Stonehenge

Thousands of people cheered and danced around Stonehenge as the sun rose over the prehistoric stone circle on Sunday, the winter solstice.

The crowds, many of them dressed as druids and pagans, had gathered before dawn, waiting patiently in the dark, cold countryside of southwestern England. Some sang and played drums, while others took their time to reflect among the massive stone pillars.

Many make pilgrimages to the stone circle each summer and winter and consider it a spiritual experience. The ancient monument, erected between 5,000 and 3,500 years ago, was built to align with the movement of the sun on the solstices, key dates in the calendar of ancient farmers.

English Heritage, the organization that manages Stonehenge, said about 8,500 people celebrated Saturday at the monument on Salisbury Plain, about 120 kilometers southwest of London. It added that its livestream of the festivities attracted more than 242,000 views from around the world.

“This is the time of year that prehistoric people really revered and was really important to them,” Win Scutt, curator of English Heritage, told the BBC, a News partner.

People who traveled to Stonehenge for Sunday’s celebrations shared some of that reverence.

“The winter solstice is about a return of life, the sun is born again,” Sophie McCarthy, who traveled to the site from Scotland with a costume and drums, told the BBC. “There’s a lot of intention, new life and hope in the air. It’s been beautiful.”

Sunday is the shortest day of the year north of the equator, where the solstice marks the start of astronomical winter. Quite the opposite in the southern hemisphere, where it is the longest day of the year and summer will begin.

The winter solstice is when the sun makes its shortest and lowest arc, but many celebrate it as a time of renewal because after Sunday, the sun begins to rise again and the days will get a little longer each day until the end of June.