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Cowboy builders botched Stonehenge and may have never even finished it, according to a leading historian.

Professor Ronald Hutton described the prehistoric wonder on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, as 'a unique and possibly failed experiment – as much a triumph as a disaster' in a talk at the Daily Mail Chalke Valley History Festival.

It is a triumph, he said, 'because the darned thing's still there and it's the most famous prehistoric monument in the entire world' built by somebody who was 'insane enough to want to try the experiment of working enormous stones as if they were wood'.

Cowboy builders: Crowds gather at dawn at Stonehenge in Wiltshire for the Summer Solstice last Saturday

'They pulled it off but they had some bad times along the way,' said Professor Hutton, an expert on paganism from Bristol University.

'When they put up one of those great sandstone blocks in the outer circle, it slipped when it was being put in its hole, fell over and broke in half.

'If you were a decent bunch of builders what you'd do then is, after a great deal of screaming and complaining, chuck the two broken bits away and bring another one intact and do it properly.

'They didn't. They put one broken bit on top of the other broken bit, jammed a lintel on top and hoped they'd stay together. They didn't, they fell over quite soon after.

'So these people are working under pressure, they don't have the resources or the time to get another stone. This is the heart of the disaster that Stonehenge ended up being.

Sunrise: A professor said it was 'a unique and possibly failed experiment - as much a triumph as a disaster'

Wide view: Stonehenge, the prehistoric wonder on Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury in Wiltshire

'Because of shoddy or high-pressure, efficiency-gaining, new Stone Age engineering, we have lost the great engineering feat of Stonehenge.'

The avenue that leads into Stonehenge is aligned directly on the mid-summer sunrise so that two of the stones frame the sunrise 'like the sights of a camera or gun'.

But Professor Hutton said the 'even more stunning effect' at the mid-winter sunset was lost – because of another mistake by the builders.

He said they built a trilithon – two massive upright stones with a lintel on top – but one of the uprights was not rooted deeply enough in the ground.

'At some time, that stone skidded out,' said the professor.

'It fell headlong across the altar stone, knocking the altar stone to the ground and breaking in half itself. That massive lintel tumbled down and still lies where it fell. They never tried to fix it.

'So Stonehenge was built by cowboys. It is on the one hand one of the greatest building successes in the story of the human race and from another point of view one of the greatest catastrophes.'

CONTROVERSY AT THE STONEHENGE TALKS

King Arthur Pendragon, the Battle Chieftain of the Council of British Druid Orders and Titular Head and Chosen Chief of the Loyal Arthurian Warband Druid

King Arthur Pendragon (pictured right), the Battle Chieftain of the Council of British Druid Orders and Titular Head and Chosen Chief of the Loyal Arthurian Warband Druid order, the 'political warrior arm of the modern druid movement', caused a stir during a question and answer session after Professor Hutton's talk.

Having listened intently throughout, the druid suddenly sprung to his feet when another audience member asked the historian: 'It's a heinous thought, but has anyone ever proposed to rebuild Stonehenge?'

King Arthur shouted: 'That's my heinous thought!', reducing festival-goers to laughter, before sitting down quietly again next to his partner Kazz, a 'priestess' whose druid name is Caliope Muse.

Professor Hutton said: 'It's a valid proposal and there is this kind of sneaking wish than more archaeologists have so far liked to admit that to put up the great trilithon and this time anchor it properly would actually restore Stonehenge to its ancient glory - we'd get the point of the whole monument again.'

Afterwards, King Arthur told the Mail: 'I went on record at the turn of the millennium and said a far better thing for the modern druids to do and a legacy to leave to our grandchildren would be to rebuild Stonehenge and put the lintels back up. 

'It would certainly stand the test of time - unlike the Millennium Dome, which they did put up. I still feel it would be a good legacy to leave to future generations if we did in fact rebuild it.'