Sacrilege on tour

Don’t miss it! It’s wonderful, especially if you are a child or have children. It’s huge fun, and for many will be their first introduction to Stonehenge, and even the idea of prehistory. On the tour’s first day at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, Jeremy Deller and I were sheltering in a little tent from the rain. A party of school children suddenly stormed in and – clearly well prepared by their teachers – received an impromptu class in contemporary art and neolithic technology. I would never have forgotten something like that. The model is so huge, so real, and so bouncy, everyone will remember it.

I’m particularly excited that it’s coming to Marlborough: it will be on the Common on Friday (June 29, 10am–6pm). As everywhere, that will be just for the one day and it will be free. And its next stop, appropriately, will be the archaeological park at Flag Fen. You can see a detailed press release from the Mayor of London’s office here (as Boris Johnson puts it, it’s “a wonderfully witty, quite literal leap into that history and a fantastic example of the irreverence that are hallmarks of our great British humour and our incomparable artists”), and further tour details here.

The locations are:

Thursday 21 June
National Botanic Garden, Carmarthenshire, Wales

Sunday 24 June
Heartlands, Redruth, Cornwall

Tuesday 26 June
Belmont Park, Exeter

Friday 29 June
Marlborough Common, Wiltshire

Wednesday 4 July
Southend, Essex

Saturday 7 July
Flag Fen, Peterborough

Wednesday 11 July
Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Sunday 15 July
Saltwell Park, Gateshead

Friday 20 July
Milton Keynes

Saturday 21 July – Sunday 12 August … it will be at 14 different sites around London

Saturday 18 August
College Green, Bristol

Sunday 26 August
Belfast

Sunday 9 September
Preston Guild, Preston

The extraordinary Paul Walkden of Inflatable World Leisure, who made it

Artist Jeremy Deller

Stonehenge in a Welsh bog garden