From carriages to kiss selfies: 150 years of photos at Stonehenge

Snapshots capturing 150 years of family holidays, honeymoons, wild parties and emotional goodbyes with Stonehenge as a dramatic backdrop are going on display at the ancient monument.

Many of the photos, taken by visitors to the great stone circle in Wiltshire, feature joyful moments – from children playing hide-and-seek to new age travellers relishing the madness of summer solstices.

Others are melancholy, including the final picture of a 20-year-old second world war serviceman, Sgt Obs Douglas Brian McLaren. He posed with his 10-year-old sister, Joyce, at the stones before leaving for the Mediterranean where he went missing in action, believed killed during an attack on a German convoy.

The exhibition at the Stonehenge visitor centre is the result of an appeal from English Heritage for people to share their snaps after last year’s celebrations marking a century of the circle being in public ownership.

More than 1,500 were sent in and they have been whittled down to 148 for the exhibition, Your Stonehenge, with the help of the photographer and chronicler of British life Martin Parr.

The earliest is from 1875 and shows the Routh family– Isabel, Maud and Robert – in a horse and carriage enjoying a day out at the stones.

Parr took the final one on display: a couple kissing as they take a selfie at last year’s autumn equinox. “I loved looking at the images that people sent in,” he said. “They really show what the stones mean to people and how our relationship with a site like Stonehenge has changed and yet stayed the same through time. They are amateur snapshots but that doesn’t detract from their value or charm. They are a social history of Britain.”

Among Parr’s favourites are a pair of contrasting images, one showing a group of robed druids, another a band of soldiers in camouflage.

Some of those who sent in images went to view the exhibition this week, including Erica and Jeremy Baldwin, both 78, who married 50 years ago this month and honeymooned in Salisbury.

They visited the stones on a snowy day in 1969 and Mr Baldwin carefully positioned his camera on a rock and used the timer to take an image of them both, his new wife in a swinging 60s PVC jacket and jaunty cap. “It was a quite magical day,” said Erica Baldwin.

Related: Through your eyes: 150 years of Stonehenge – in pictures

Another striking image is that of Dawn Hayles in the early 80s, aged 17. She and her father, the legendary Bristol landlord Dutty Ken, used to join the new age convoy that headed to Stonehenge for the summer solstice.

“It was a lovely, lovely time,” she said. “The sun was bright and I never saw anyone argue.” Hayles said she adored the exhibition. “Often we fail to bring people together. In these pictures people have come together. There’s a lot of love in these pictures.”

Susan Greaney, an English Heritage historian, said she particularly liked the photo of a group of women sitting on the stones to knit (in the days before the circle was fenced off) and ones of holidaying families in their Clarks sandals, eating Dairylea sandwiches.

She is also fond of a 1957 image of eight-year-old Richard Woodman Bailey, the son of an architect working on the circle. When one of the stones was lifted, he placed a penny under it. Presumably it is still there.

Greaney said she found it moving to see how connected visitors were to the monument: “People have been visiting Stonehenge for centuries, for all sorts of reasons, and taking photos of themselves and their loved ones in front of the stones since the very earliest days of photography. It’s touching to see how people have interacted with them over the years.”

English Heritage is keen to hear from anyone who has a family photo dated earlier than 1875 and to trace the couple featured in Parr’s autumn equinox “kissing selfie” photo. They can be contacted on: YourStonehenge@English-Heritage.org.uk The exhibition runs until August.