Salisbury Plain: Banging drums and cheering as the sun came up, around 10,000 druids, pagans, New Age travellers and – in line with ancient traditions – Instagramming tourists marked the summer solstice at Stonehenge.

With only a few wispy clouds high in the sky, it was a perfect dawn to the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, as the thousands of colourful revellers danced peacefully, played pipes and sang as the sun glinted over the horizon at 4.52am.

The neolithic monument on Salisbury Plain – attacked by vandals protesting fossil fuels and climate change just 48 hours earlier – rang to the sounds of a saxophone as dawn broke above the Heel Stone, the ancient entrance to the Stone Circle.

Constructed in several phases from around 3100 BC to 1600 BC, in prehistoric times people – mostly farmers and gardeners, travellers and builders – gathered at Stonehenge at the summer and winter solstices to witness the pivotal changes in the movement of the sun. They conducted rituals and ceremonies relating to the changing seasons, the sun and the sky.

In more recent times, the stench of cannabis fills the air with the sounds of acoustic reggae. A man called Larry who says he was a raven in a past life squawks at everyone walking past. Men in tuxedos yell at the top of their voices that they have been reborn.

You can buy hoodies and caps, vegan burgers and a milky, weak flat white. The vibe is like nothing else. If you’re looking for a place to be your unabashed self, this is it.

The skies, our tour guide points out, were important for practical information about the weather, timekeeping and navigation, but were also closely entwined with stories, myths and beliefs about the cosmos.

The ceremony was led by the self-styled Druid leader King Arthur Pendragon, who let a chant for peace, protection of the ancient site and the return of the site’s guardians – millennia-old human remains which is said are now in a museum storeroom.