Contrary to popular belief, early Christians did not, on the whole, go around destroying every pagan place of worship they could find. Yes, non-Christian worship was specifically outlawed by Christian emperors in the later fourth century, and yes, some pagan temples were destroyed by mobs of Christians (the Serapeum in Alexandria is perhaps the most famous). Nevertheless, as Tim O'Neill argues at length in this review of Catherine Nixey's recent book, destruction of pagan temples was very much the exception, rather than the rule. The places where most temples were destroyed seem to have been places with existing problems with urban unrest (whether religiously motivated or not), such as Alexandria, Syria and Palestine. Far away in Britain, there is only evidence for the destruction of three temples in the whole province - a tiny proportion of those that would have existed. For the most part, pagan religious structures in Roman Britain fell out of use in much more mundane ways, through a combination of falling numbers of worshippers and the removal of elite financial support for their upkeep.

This brings us onto a really important aspect of this topic - what were people doing at Stonehenge when Christianity arrived in Britain? I can't stress enough that Stonehenge is a properly ancient site - seriously, this place is old. The earliest earthworks in the immediate area were built around 3500 BC, with the famous stone circles being erected around 1000-1700 years after that (English Heritage's website gives a very brief overview, with links for further reading). Over the millennia between their original construction and the arrival of the Romans in Britain in the first century AD, the activities that people performed on the site of Stonehenge changed a number of times. It's safe to say that the original function of the stone circles and associated structures were long, long forgotten by then, not to mention another 2-300 years later when people in Britain started converting to Christianity. Again, we're dealing with a popular image here that is significant different to what is likely to have really been the case. People like to imagine that pre-Christian (or even pre-Roman) belief and practice was unchanging, stuck in some primitive stasis and transmitted perfectly through the ages. In reality, all human behaviour is subject to evolution and change, depending on huge ranges of factors. Stonehenge is a perfect example of this - it's a site that had obvious importance for the original builders (and even before them), but this meaning and importance was not static. Different people used it for different purposes at different times: as a place to conduct rituals, to bury the dead, to live and to work.

Interestingly, and according to recent excavations (behind paywall), there seems to have been some intense activity on the site in the late Roman period, about the time that Christianity was gaining a following in Britain. Archaeologists found significant quantities of Roman pottery, as well as metalwork, coins and animal bones in newly-dug pits near the stones. Perhaps the circles took on new ritual meaning for the local people in this period? Or maybe, as it is today, it was a tourist attraction, to which people took picnics... who knows!