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Politics.co.uk: 30 years on: What really happened at the Battle of the Beanfield?

Thirty years ago today, a convoy of between 500 and 600 new age travellers left a campsite they'd illegally occupied on the Earl of Cardigan's land. They were heading towards Stonehenge for an outlawed celebration of the summer solstice when they were stopped by a police roadblock. The convoy turned into a field, at which point around 1,300 police descended upon them and a violent confrontation took place.

If you had bought certain newspapers the following day you would have learnt that the field had been full of heavily-armed social deviants. If you had watched the BBC at the time, you would have heard that the police had been attacked by anarchists wielding wooden blocks, rocks and even petrol bombs. But if you'd been there you may have had a different story to tell. Unfortunately, no-one was interested.

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