The Hippies of Milton Keynes and other neopagan stories

A friend of mine called Chris Allen lives in a village called Langford near Bicester in Oxfordshire. Just recently we were chatting online while he was out walking and he sent me these photos (one of which was taken back in the spring) of stone circles in the Langford Village Nature Reserve.

As someone who grew up in Cornwall surrounded by stone circles (see here), and who has read a lot about ancient stone formations, I knew instantly that these were modern. And, sure enough, a little research turned up a copy of a newsletter produced by the Langford Village Community Association, which explained that the larger stone circle is actually a sundial, which was erected to mark the total solar eclipse of August 1999 (which I featured here). The central Gnomon stone weighs 13.5 tonnes and, as local stones were deemed to be too soft, a big chunk of glacial limestone was brought up from a quarry near Bangor in North Wales. Meanwhile, the slate circle is reported to produce some interesting acoustic effects if you sit inside and talk. It was put up to mark the Millennium. 

Here are a couple of other photos I found online:

Source: Buckinghamshire Red Kite Days Blog

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Oxfordshire does have some genuine Neolithic sites that are well worth visiting, such as the Rollright Stones near Long Compton, Uffington Castle and the famous White Horse, and the early long barrow known as Wayland's Smithy. 

Which is maybe why people are still building these kinds of monuments in the 21st century - to resonate with the county's past. Or maybe it's all to do with the rise of neopaganism and a desire to return to simpler times? 

If so, Oxfordshire is not alone.

Interestingly, not too far from Bicester is Milton Keynes, which sits at the northern extremities of Buckinghamshire.  And Milton Keynes is of interest to us here because it too is a hotbed of neopaganism.

Milton Keynes is a temple to the sun.

Let me explain.

Most of our older towns – even huge metropolitan areas like London, Birmingham or Manchester - began life as small settlements. Over time, they grew larger and merged with their neighbours but not in any truly planned or coordinated way. And they were built long before the invention of motor vehicles, which is why their road systems are often clogged and complex, and why we are forced to build so many bypasses. Milton Keynes’s road system is different. 

Because the town was built from scratch, its planners had a blank canvas to play with. So they decided to adopt a grid pattern borrowed from America where young cities were built for motor vehicles rather than pedestrians and horse drawn-carts. And yet, despite it looking so modern and un-British, the layout of Milton Keynes was also heavily influenced by ancient tradition. Just look at the street names in this zoomed in map of central Milton Keynes ...

The draft plan for the town had the grid network laid out with streets running along north-south and east-west axes. But the lead architect, Derek Walker, realised that if he shifted the design by just a few degrees, it would allow the streets to align with the sunrise on the summer solstice. He named the town’s central thoroughfare Midsummer Boulevard. He then named others after important prehistoric sites such as Avebury and Silbury Hill and arranged them so that they all ran parallel to each other on a south-west to north-east axis. Then, at the Northern end of Midsummer Boulevard, he created a green space with a purpose-built hill called the Belvedere (from the Italian for ‘beautiful view’). On the top was built an iron basket that could be used as a fire beacon to mark the arrival of the solstice and other important events. The beacon was hit by lightning and destroyed in 2002 but has since been replaced by a ‘Pyramid of Light’ – a 20 feet high steel sculpture by artist Liliane Lijn. 

And now, every solstice, people gather there at dawn – just as they do at other cosmically-aligned sites like Stonehenge – to witness the ‘turning of the wheel’ of the seasons. 

Photo: Gill Prince via Twitter 

But why did Walker and his fellow architects do this? 

The planning of Milton Keynes took place during the late 1960s and early 1970s and happened to coincide with the end of the Hippy Era and the arrival of the New Age. And the planners took on board the public opinions of the time, particularly the views of young people and the environmental movement that was starting to gain ground. People wanted to ‘get back to Nature’ and we were just starting to understand the importance of green spaces for better mental health. And influencers like The Beatles and Timothy Leary were promoting Eastern philosophy and a return to a more spiritual life without the need of organised religion. The builders of Milton Keynes weren’t immune to these influences – if the stories are true, many of them celebrated the construction of the Midsummer beacon with an all-night bonfire party, booze, Pink Floyd and a big bag of weed. 

Milton Keynes is the result of all that influence. It's pretty much the greenest large town in the UK. And it was designed by hippies.

A total of 40% of the town consists of green spaces and there are more than 22 million trees and shrubs (around 100 for every resident). There are 15 lakes, 11 miles of canals, and more than 180 miles of bridleways, footpaths and cycle tracks. And there are sculptures and works of art everywhere, many of which – like Claire Wilks’ Circle Dance willow figures, Peter Bowker’s Gnomon (a group of large standing stones that stand on a ley line that runs through the town), and Ivan and Heather Morrison’s Cave, all hark back to ancient ritual and sacred spaces. 

What fascinates me is that Milton Keynes looks modern and sort-of futuristic (it even has small delivery robots trundling around the streets) and yet, no matter where you are in the town, a short walk will take you to open grassy areas, trees and flowers, running or open water, public art and, most importantly, quiet – most of the things that people identify as being essential for mental well-being. The town does have its detractors – mainly because it feels and looks so different and unfamiliar. I’ve been there many times and it does to take a while to get used to it.

But perhaps this is a template for future development? It's notable that the recently published results of the UK 2021 national census show that neopaganism is on the rise. Shamanism is expanding faster than any other religion, with the number of people saying they practise it rising from 650 in 2011 to 8,000 in 2021 in England and Wales. The result might prove controversial, as the Shamanism UK website asserts 'It is not a religion, more an authentic expression of mankind’s spirituality'. That's like Buddhism, I guess, although people consider that a religion too. Meanwhile, the number of people identifying as Pagans or Wiccans has similarly exploded.  Pagans now number 74,000 people (up from 57,000 in 2011) and Wiccans number 13,000.

There seems to be a strong desire, especially among the young, to find a meaningful path to follow in these turbulent times. And as Druidry, Paganism, Wicca and Shamanism are all concerned with revering the natural world and forming a closer partnership with - rather than exploiting - Nature, I reckon that's a very good thing. 

Photographer Gill Prince's book Unexpected: MK, celebrating 50 years of Milton Keynes is a lovely thing. See here.