Druidry is small, publicly visible, and has spent much of the last century in negotiation with the state.
Stonehenge is the flashpoint. Druid ceremonies there date from 1905. Access became contested in the 1970s and 1980s as the solstice festival around the monument grew, and in 1985 police stopped a convoy heading for the site in an operation known as the Battle of the Beanfield, after which the stones were closed at the solstice for over a decade. Managed open access was restored in 2000, and tens of thousands now attend, most of them not Druids. Druid orders have been part of the consultation over the site ever since.
Human remains are the other point of friction. From 2006 the Council of British Druid Orders sought reburial of prehistoric remains held in museums, including material from Avebury. The Avebury request was refused in 2010 after public consultation, on the grounds of continuing research value. The episode forced museums, archaeologists and Pagan groups into a formal conversation that has continued since.
Legal standing advanced in 2010, when the Charity Commission for England and Wales registered The Druid Network. The decision required the Commission to satisfy itself that Druidry involves belief in a supreme being or entities, worship of it, and benefit to the public, and its published reasoning is now cited in wider argument about what counts as a religion in English law.
Numbers are modest. The 2021 census of England and Wales recorded roughly 2,500 people writing in Druid, inside a much larger Pagan write-in of about 74,000. Many Druids describe themselves simply as Pagan, so the figure is a floor rather than a count.