In time for the 40th Anniversary of the Beanfield (1 June 2025), when the police brutally attacked a convoy of people heading to Stonehenge for the annual free festival in 1985, we are releasing hours of previously unseen video testimony taken in 1990/91 during the making of our documentary ‘Operation Solstice’. Footage that has survived over 30 years, saved largely thanks to Dale Vince, who funded the digitisation, and who took on the role of outrider on the day. Some once familiar faces and voices here, Mo, Phil and Don, now long since passed, brought back to bear witness to the shameful barbarism of that day, ‘the worst police treatment of people’ in living memory, for which there was no public inquiry, but about which we will neither forgive nor forget.
The Beanfield
A special 40th Anniversary re-edit of the original film released in 1992, now containing a lot more unseen video testimony and archive - the most comprehensive take of the day yet. A good place to start to familiarise yourself.. A 25 minute version of this film was shown on Channel 4 in November 1991.
Phil drove the lead vehicle and provides a unique perspective on the beanfield , moving on to describe what happened at Stoney Cross the following year. Part Two of a lengthy and powerful interview with Phil called ‘Go Move Shift’, with Part One below, covering the lead up to the Beanfield (Nostell Priory and Molesworth).
Helen the Hatt was 19 and near the front of the convoy when her ambulance home was attacked on the road and she assaulted. Along with 26 others, she went on to sue the Wiltshire police for assault and wrongful arrest in 1990.
Maureen Lodge ‘Mo’ was arrested on the grassy field at the start of the police’s invasion at 7pm, and also sued the police, Here, also arguing that Stonehenge was just an excuse to destroy the travelling way of life.
Lin Lorien, also known as Decker Lin, gives her account of the Beanfield, including chilling detail of masked up police ‘out to do serious harm’ , and the traumatic treatment of families and children at the hands of the social services.
Dale was the convoy motorcycle outrider on the day, discovered the police roadblock/trap, and was chased by a helicopter, earning a mention in the police radio log as someone who needed to be 'taken out'. Dale also helped save this archive.
One of the only decent journalists on the Beanfield, The Observer’s Nick Davies, gives a really concise and vivid account of the day, Plus the role of the mass media in concocting fantasy about what happened, and details of a fascist plot to sell guns to the convoy.
Kim Sabido and an ITN crew filmed throughout the day, recording the police build-up, interviews with people trapped on the field, and the final assault at 7pm involving over 1000 police in riot gear. What Sabido would later refer to as 'the worst police treatment of people that I've witnessed in my entire career'.
Don Aitken, from the Festival Welfare Services, delivers a short history of the People's Free Festival, from Windsor to Stonehenge, delving inside the police’s mindset prior to and during the Beanfield in 1985, the UK’s drift into becoming a police state, and police inconsistencies during The Beanfield trial in 1990/91.
Part One of Go Move Shift! My life with the Peace Convoy (1984 -86), where Phil the Beer focusses on 1984 and an earlier police attack at Nostell Priory in Yorkshire. Part Two covers the Beanfield and Stoney Cross and can be found at the top of this site.
Extra viewing
A landmark BBC2 documentary from 1986, with lots of witness accounts of the Beanfield from the travellers, the Earl of Cardigan, and the Observer’s Nick Davies.
Trashed BBC2 (1986)
Facing South
TVS Special on the Convoy (1986)
A TVS Special report on the Convoy and the threat to civil liberties (1986) A documentary about travellers parked up in Bristol after the police operation to clear them from Stoney Cross in 1986.
An Englishman's Home -
BBC Debate on Right to Roam (1986)
A BBC 2 studio debate focussing on the right to roam, to live the travelling lifestyle, and to gather at Stonehenge. Lots of familiar faces, and loads of fair comment from the likes of Brig, Eavis, and Phil the Beer. According to Moz, who was in the audience, they made sure that there was plenty of booze laid on to encourage 'the verbals', and a confrontational vibe..
Stonehenge 1986
(South on Two - Special Report)
During the summer of 1986, the Wiltshire and Hampshire police once again launched a huge operation to try and prevent people from reaching Stonehenge for the Solstice sunrise. This was the year when the remains of the Peace Convoy was decommissioned during Operation Daybreak at a place called Stoney Cross. It was also the year when hundreds of festival goers tried in vain to get past a massive and expensive police exclusion zone covering a huge area around the stones. This is a South on Two documentary about the extraordinary cat and mouse game that was played out that year (and subsequent years) in the usually quiet country lanes around Wiltshire.
The Levellers -
Battle of the Beanfield song (1994)
The Levellers perform the Battle of the Beanfield song on the Wango Riley Stage at the Hackney Homeless festival in 1994.