I have been driving up and down the same stretch of Virginia’s two-lane Highway 11 for almost an hour, and still I have not found Foamhenge.
There are no signs for this place. There is no parking lot. I think that maybe it has been torn down, or I’m on the wrong road, or I’m just missing something and should pack it in. But I feel compelled to keep searching, as if I’m on a debased quest.
Foamhenge is exactly what it sounds like: a full-scale replica of Stonehenge made of foam. It is the creation of Mark Cline of Enchanted Castle Studios, who has also built a fiberglass Stonehenge in the piney woods of Alabama. These creations are both listed on Clonehenge, which catalogues the world’s 80-plus Stonehenge replicas, including several that have been dismantled such as New Zealand’s “Fridgehenge”. Fridges, it seems, do not weather well.
So not only is Foamhenge a copy of Stonehenge, it is one of many copies – part of a worldwide phenomenon of Stonehenge copies that are large and small, permanent and temporary.
As I drive around looking for this place, I can’t help but think of two movies: National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985) and This Is Spinal Tap (1984). In the former, the Griswolds travel to Stonehenge, where Clark delivers one of his classic sentimental speeches – “Take a last look, kids, at one of man’s most curious creations. Built to stand the test of time and the elements … war, you name it. A thing of glory for a million future generations to see, and we were here” – and then backs the family’s rental car into one of the stones, toppling the whole thing.
In This Is Spinal Tap, the band is horrified by the botched 18-inch Stonehenge copy that descends on to the stage during one of their shows. As lead singer David St Hubbins (Michael McKean) notes bitterly afterwards, the tiny monument, which was supposed to be 18 feet tall, “tended to understate the hugeness of the object”.
Foamhenge was erected on 31 March 2004 and partially covered with black plastic for an April Fools’ Day unveiling. Not a solstice, but a holiday nonetheless.
And yes, I finally spot it in the trees – not visible from the road, but there nonetheless. I pass a sign requesting that I not deface the site and wander between the foam stones as the early evening sun drops low in the sky and flickers between them. A statue of Merlin presides over the scene, casting a spell, and I hear a tractor and a lawnmower somewhere far off.
Up close, the pillars are more of a deep blue-gray than gray, but from a distance, they do look like stone, and as I gaze on Foamhenge as a whole, I both recognize and do not recognize what is in front of me. The foam is weatherworn, and much of the yellowish white under the paint is exposed, as if the stones are molting. Some of them are split up the middle so you can see the frame on which the foam was formed, and one block is held up by large wooden supports that look like a medieval catapult. Bits of foam lie scattered on the ground. I pick up one of them and press it between my thumb and forefinger, watching it contract and pop out again, and then I let the breeze carry it away.
I conjure the real Stonehenge in my mind. In the early 1900s, visitors were given chisels so they could take home a piece of the monument as a souvenir. Picnics and holiday gatherings were held there throughout the Victorian period. But this sort of thing could not last. In 1977, the stones were roped off. This is the year that I was born, so I never could have walked or climbed on them, as many people did.
As I stand on this hillside in the glowing light, I feel a sense of pleasant perversity, as if I’m free of the real and set loose, all alone, in an artificial world. One day, I’ll go to the real monument, and I’ll remember its unholy twin in the farmland of Virginia. As I look at Merlin and try to figure out why he is here, the crumbling Foamhenge seems to represent something that matters – not a lost civilization, but a desire for one, and its combination of fakery and sincerity feels oddly authentic.
Correction 25 August at 10.30am: Foamhenge was erected in 2004 not 2014
