The man who bought Stonehenge – and then gave it away

Whatever his motivation, 100 years ago, on 21 September 1915, Cecil Chubb paid £6,600 for the monument at an auction in Salisbury, Wiltshire. It happened, he said, “on a whim”.

Chubb’s wife Mary was reportedly less than grateful for the romantic gesture, possibly because the price equated to as much as £680,000 in today’s money.

On 26 October 1918, 16 days before the Armistice ended World War One, Chubb passed Stonehenge into public ownership.