SOME chose to take in yesterday’s solar eclipse from the historic Rollright Stones near Chipping Norton.

The English Heritage site, containing three Neolithic and Bronze Age stone monuments, begin filling up with people from 8am.

By the height of the eclipse at about 9.30am, there was a large crowd at the site taking in the view.

The parting clouds offered those who had set up camp glimpses of the eclipse unfolding.

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Jennifer Lanham, from nearby Long Compton, chose the local spot for a morning picnic with her children Gabriel, nine, Raphael, six, and Athena, four, after a planned trip to the Lake District had to be abandoned due to a flat tyre.

Oxford Mail:

Jennifer Lanham and her four-year-old daughter Athena watch the eclipse at the Rollright Stones.

The mother-of-three said: “It’s local to us and we thought it would be a nice spot. It would have been a disaster if we had gone to the Lake District as apparently you couldn’t see it from there. We got a good view so we were quite fortunate.”

She added: “There was a good mixture of people. We didn’t have protective glasses but someone lent us some. The children enjoyed it. They thought it was really neat they could see the moon blocking the sun.”

Oxford Mail:

Raphael, six, and Gabriel Lanham, nine, wear special glasses to take in the solar eclipse at the Rollright Stones.

Nearly 2,000 years old, the stones consist of three groups: the Whispering Knights – the remains of a burial chamber – the King’s Men stone circle and the single King Stone.