“Bamahenge”, a full-scale fiberglass Stonehenge, wasn’t built by Alabama Druids. It was conceived, designed and installed by Virginia artist Mark Cline and his Enchanted Castle Studios.
Cline’s work is big, typified by the dinosaurs that dot the landscape around his Virginia studio. It was these sculptures that caught the eye of Alabama billionaire George Barber, who wanted some dinosaurs for himself. He had Cline install four—a brontosaurus, a T-Rex, a stegosaurus and a triceratops—along the edge of the woods near Barber Marina in Elberta. Barber was so happy with the ginormous creatures, he commissioned Cline to create a replica Stonehenge for the marina property, reminiscent of the “Foamhenge” that Cline built in Virginia in 2004.
Both Foamhenge (made entirely out of styrofoam) and Bamahenge are full-size, exact replicas of the real thing, right down to their orientation to the sun and the summer solstice. And since third time’s a charm, Barber added one more Cline piece to his collection: called “The Lady in the Lake,” it’s a 50-foot fiberglass woman floating in a manmade pond nearby.
It’s recently been reported that the original Foamhenge will have to come down, the land underneath it to be absorbed into a Virginia state park. There’s no new home for the foam stones identified just yet—maybe they can come and join their fiberglass Alabama cousins.
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