Lieutenant Philip Henry Sharpe of the Royal Engineers' Balloon Section (Aldershot) had been stationed since 15 September at Sappers' Balloon Section at Bulford Camp on Salisbury Plain and this photograph was taken during a military exercise from a tethered hydrogen balloon probably in late September. Three photographs were taken and they were displayed at the Society of Antiquaries on 6th December 1906 and published in Archaeologia a journal of the London Society of Antiquaries (1907).
This is considered to be one of the first sets of aerial photographs of an archaeological site taken from a balloon. In June 1899 aerial photographs were taken of the remains at Ostia in Italy.
Col. J.E. Capper "Photographs of Stonehenge, as seen from a War Balloon". Archaeologia, or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, volume 60 (1907) no.2: 571.
