2000 people gather at Stonehenge for Winter Solstice

In one of the largest ever gatherings, around 2000 people arrived at Stonehenge for the annual Winter Solstice celebrations this year.

It is believed the ancient rituals of the Winter Solstice have been celebrated at Stonehenge for thousands of years and this year saw one of the largest gatherings on record despite the snowy weather.

For many years, Stonehenge has been cordoned off but more recently English Heritage have worked with the Pagan and Druid groups to allow them to carry out the rituals which welcome the shortest day of the year and look forward to the Summer Solstice.

Amongst the ceremonies were at least one Pagan wedding overseen by a Druid calling himself King Arthur Pendragon, although no knights or round table were seen.

The ceremonies actually happened on Wednesday even though the Gregorian calendar calculates it as Tuesday. The difference is because this calendar of 365 days + a leap year does not correspond exactly to the solar year of 365.2422 days.

One small change to the traditional ceremony however was the snowball fight which erupted after the main ceremony was over.

There are some good pictures of the event on the Guardian Winter Solstice page.

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