Organised by some London commune dwellers, notably Ubi Dwyer and Sid Rawle, it was in many ways the forerunner of the Stonehenge Free Festival, particularly in the brutality of its final suppression by the police, which led to a public outcry about the tactics involved.
The 1974 Festival, due to last for ten days, was broken up on the sixth morning by a large number of police.
Early on Wednesday 28 August 1974 the site was invaded by hundreds of officers from the Thames Valley police force with truncheons drawn, who gave the remaining participants ten minutes to leave.
[1] Nicholas Albery, playwright Heathcote Williams and his partner Diana Senior successfully sued David Holdsworth, the Thames Valley Chief Constable for creating a riotous situation in which the police attacked the plaintiffs.
The government provided an abandoned airfield at Watchfield in 1975, in response to the public outrage, and as a means of moving the festival away from Royal castles, but the atmosphere of this event was poor[according to whom?]