The Man Who Bought Stonehenge At Auction Instead Of The Curtains He Was Supposed To Buy
A British lawyer went to buy some items to decorate his house on the request of his wife, but came back with something decidedly larger and unexpected
There are few places on earth as instantly recognizable as England’s Stonehenge. The huge prehistoric stone monument in Salisbury has mystified historians and archaeologists through the years as to exactly their true origins. For a lengthy period of time, the landmark was held in private ownership, including a century ago when a man named Cecil Chubb went to an auction at his wife’s behest to buy some curtains and came home instead with the deed to Stonehenge.
Chubb was a successful lawyer from a family of modest means (his father was a saddler), who amassed his own fortune. This was aided by his marriage to Mary Bella Alicia Finch in 1902, who inherited a considerable estate following the death of her uncle Dr. W. Corbin Finch.
In 1915, Stonehenge was privately owned by Sir Cosmo Gordon Antrobus, who had just inherited the property from his recently deceased brother Edmund. Not wanting to bother with it, he almost immediately put it up for auction.
