What If…? Of Stone Heads and Stories.

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021 Tim Campbell-GreenLeave a comment

What ho, you wonderful people, you.

So, despite having half a dozen half-written posts, piles of interesting objects and sherds to talk about, and a few adventures to recount, I want to try something a little different today. “Oh no!” I hear you cry. But fret ye not, gentle reader, for it is still archaeology, it is still Glossop based, and it is still interesting. But it is a little… quirky. You’ll see what I mean.

I have a friend who is a writer, and quite a good one at that. He has often mentioned that stories usually start with what he terms a “What If?” moment, where something – often an object – presents itself, and the question is posed “what if…?” From there the story grows, based on and around that one question. The answer that comes doesn’t have to be ‘real’, it is fiction after all, but it has to be possible. What if a house was haunted? And what if the house fell down? And what if a brick from the house was haunted too? And what if a dashing archaeologist took the brick home to write about it on his extremely popular and incredibly interesting blog? What if…?

Archaeology, I think, uses a similar technique. An object is excavated, and the interpretation – the story – begins. However, where we differ from writers is that we base our ‘what ifs…?’ on evidence and supposition grounded in data. The interpretation, in this sense, has to be ‘real‘, although it is only ‘real’ for as long as the data supports it. Sometimes though, It’s fun to play “what if…?” – and here we join today’s post.

A stone head displaying all the characteristic features, including almond eyes. This one was allegedly found on Mouselow, and now lives on a wall in Buxton Museum

Stone heads. A lot has been written about them. They are cursed and evil. Or they are warm and friendly. They are ‘Celtic’ (i.e. Iron Age or Romano-British) in date. Or they are medieval or early modern in date. Or a combination of both. They represent an unbroken pre-Christian tradition, and an aspect of the whispered ‘Old Ways‘. Or they are simply folk art, and just decorative. Or they are magically protective (that wonderful word, apotropaic, again). Or both. Or neither. A brief trawl of the internet gives a lot of different sites and opinions, ranging from the scholarly and the more open minded, to what can only be termed outright nonsense.

Whatever they are, carved stone heads are a feature of this part of the Pennines – from Longdendale, over the hills to West Yorkshire, and up to the Calder Valley. I actually have a serious project that is looking at them; cataloguing known examples from Glossop and Longdendale, and trying to place them geographically, as well as giving some sort of date to them. There are at least 23 examples from the Glossop area, with more doubtless waiting to be uncovered. But it’s an ongoing project, and not really ready to publish – here, or anywhere else for that matter – and I just keep chipping away at it. It was during the course of trying to map where they were found, that I noticed something very interesting.

Stone head in Old Glossop. Image stolen shamelessly from the Old Glossop website (follow this link – the website is very good)

Before we go any further, I should state that my personal belief is that most of the stone heads are medieval or post-medieval in date (indeed, there is a record of them being carved in the 19th Century). That’s not to say that Iron Age ‘Celtic’ examples don’t exist (one was found at Binchester Roman Fort, in County Durham in 2013), it’s just that it is very difficult to date them as they usually don’t come from any secure archaeological context, and basing a date on ‘style’ or method of carving, as has happened in the past, is notoriously dodgy. That stated, there is the possibility that I might be wrong. And this led to my ‘what if…?‘ moment.

Back to the find location, sadly the majority of the heads are simply “found in Glossop area“, and thus have no exact place. But from various sources, I was able to identify where some of the heads were found. The distribution map is below:

1:10,000 map of Glossop. The Find spots – where the heads were found – are marked in red.

They seem to be dotted all around the area: Mouselow, Manor Park Road, several in Old Glossop, etc. However, looking at the above map, I noticed there was a distinct grouping in Whitfield – four of them centred around Slatelands Road and Hollin Cross Lane. Hmmmmm… let’s have a closer look, then.

Here is the Whitfield group on the 1:2500 map.

Duke Street, Pikes Lane, St Mary’s Road, and Slatelands Road. Geographically, they are in the same tangle of roads in that area. But the heads more than likely pre-date the Victorian roads, so we need to strip them back. What was there then? Well fields, mainly, though the medieval track from Simmondley to Glossop ran through here (that blog post is coming, I promise!). And before that, the Roman road also ran through here, along Pikes Lane, before kinking over Long Clough Brook and onto the fort and settlement at Melandra.

And then, the “what if…?” hit me.

For the sake of a good story, what if these heads actually were Iron Age or Roman in date? What could this cluster mean?

Looking again at the area stripped of the Victorian houses, it’s very clearly a promontory, a high plateau that runs between two brooks – Glossop Brook to the north, and Long Clough Brook to the south. In the Iron Age, they liked their elevated places – Mouselow, which dominates the area, is a classic Iron Age hillfort, and others exist nearby, at Mellor and Mam Tor. One only has to look at St Mary’s Road from Harehills Park to see how steep those slopes are (try doing it pushing Master Hamnett in a pram with a load of shopping from Aldi). And on the other side, who hasn’t cursed Slatelands Road halfway up, gasping for breath. This is a very real landscape feature, completely masked by later development, but one which would have been very visible back then. This would have been particularly true where the peninsular narrows at the west, leading down to the junction of the two brooks. This too, is significant.

Throughout prehistory water was a sacred thing, and was considered ritually important. A spit of land, elevated, defined by water and ending in the confluence of two bodies of water, would have been hugely significant. Actually, a perfect place for an Iron Age temple or shrine, perhaps one devoted to the ‘Celtic head cult’ as suggested by scholars such as Dr Ann Ross (in her Pagan Celtic Britain)? Indeed, the North Derbyshire Archaeological Survey notes that the number of heads in the Glossop area “might suggest a cult centre” based in the town in the Romano-British period (Hart 1984:105). It has been suggested that the heads are sometimes associated with liminality and boundaries, and were protective. What if they were they placed facing down the peninsular, to mark out the sacred space, and to defend it?

The Roman road moves through this promontory, sticking to the high ground away from the valley floors and marshy terrain, as the Romans preferred (see map below). But what if the location of the possible shrine or temple influenced the choice of road location, ploughing through the sacred enclosure, perhaps to make a point about Roman dominance?

The location of the heads in relation to the landscape. The blue is the waters of Glossop Brook (north) and Long Clough Brook (south), forming the spit of land. The yellow line is the medieval trackway, and the green line is the course of the Roman road.

What if…?

Now, I’m not suggesting for a moment that that the above is absolutely true; this is a wild flight of fantasy, and pure fiction – a story. Indeed, doubts are being raised about the reality of the ‘Celtic head cult’ theory in general. But it is a possibility, at least: an archaeological what if…? However, if that isn’t the answer, there still remains the issue of why four stone heads were found in a cluster in this area. What is going on?

If we return to my original thought, that the heads are medieval or post-medieval in date, might they be related to the Simmondley – (Old) Glossop trackway in someway? If we look at the map above, we can see this track (marked in yellow) runs broadly along the line of Princess Street. And just to the east of the three of the heads run along the same alignment. Is this significant? What if people somehow, and for some reason, deposited these heads to the east of the track? But why? Well, I came across a possible reference to just such a practice in this area – Clarke states that “Oral tradition in the High Peak of Derbyshire suggests heads were buried as charms beneath newly-built roads, presumably to keep permanent watch over them” (1999:286). He cites no sources for this “oral tradition”, but this type of apotropaic function – preventing witchcraft and promoting good fortune – is associated with carved heads all over the United Kingdom (Billingsley 2016). Perhaps, then, we are seeing the ritual deposition of carved heads as part of the road building tradition.

What if…?

No, it is a mystery, and ultimately we are left with questions for which there are no obvious answers. Three of the heads are in Manchester Museum, and the fourth presumably in the hands of the owner/finder. I will have to go and see them, as that might help in dating. As I say the project is ongoing, and any comments or help in the area would be greatly appreciated. Do you know of any stone heads? Do you have photographs of any? Or stories – they seem to attract folklore and superstition like nothing else! Please contact me in the usual way – email me, or through twitter ( @roberthamnett ). Or just come and find me in the street, as people are increasingly doing… so much for pseudonyms and anonymity!

I do hope you enjoyed the little flight of fantasy, but we’ll be back to business as usual next time – the sherds are mounting up! Until then, look after yourselves and each other.

And I remain, your humble servant

References:

John Billingsley – Instances and Contexts of the Head Motif in Britain

David Clarke – The Head Cult: Tradition and Folklore Surrounding the Symbol of the Severed Human Head in the British Isles. (Unpublished PhD Thesis, accessed here)

Anne Ross – Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition

Folk Tales · Oddities · Waterways of Glossop

Nat Nutter: Glossop’s Very Own Witch

June 10, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green3 Comments

Greetings all.

An interesting title, and a tantalising tale, today. I was originally going to post today’s topic at the end of the Lean Town posts (here and here), but after they became too large I thought I’d do it as a separate post.

Reading through Hamnett the other day, I came across this:

“The Gnat Hole Wood is very pleasant in the Summer time when there are no gnats about. The small stream of water that runs through the wood at one place forms a small pool; this was known as Old Nat Nutter’s Porridge Kettle. She had the reputation of being a witch and fortune teller and used this pool for unholy practices and incantations. She was a bogey to children.”

Interesting… I do love a good folk story, and one with tantalising clues, too.

So off I buggered (in those happy-go-lucky pre-covid times, when one could just bugger off into the woods) to look for the Porridge Kettle, and any signs of Nat Nutter.

The stream referred to is, presumably, the one pointed to by the large blue arrow in the map below, as it is the only one to run through Gnat Hole Wood (or Gnat Hole Plantation, as the earlier maps name it).

Nat Map — The map of the area. For reference, Lean Town is circled in blue.

As far as I can tell, it is unnamed. I’m sure it had a name at some stage in its history, as watercourses are one of those landscape features that no matter how small – and this one is less than a mile long – are given a name, even if only a local one. However, we must remember that the surveyors who actually drew the maps, whilst superhuman, were not invincible – they might have had an off day, or it might have been raining and they didn’t fancy getting wet, or there was no one around to ask the name of that particular stream, or… you get the idea. Moreover, the fact that Hamnett himself didn’t know the name, particularly given his uncanny ability to “know things”, seems to indicate that the name was lost by 1910 (when the article was written), and probably a good deal earlier. The brook itself begins on, and is formed largely from the water run off from, Shaw Moor (perhaps we should call it Shaw Moor Brook) and it joins Bray Clough Brook between Gnat Hole Mill and Lean Town.

I travelled through the woods here, looking for a “pool”, or something that might match the description:

Nat 3 — This is the upper part, with Bray Clough Brook below.

Nat 2 — Here it drops into a series of waterfalls, in a steep secluded glade. Atmospheric to be sure, and perhaps a perfect place for witchcraft.

Nat 1 — Lower down, and more open, but still steep sided

Alas, I found nothing that would definitely be called a pool as such, nor anything that could be connected to Nat Nutter. The area must have changed a huge amount since 1910, and even more so since the ‘witch’ was supposedly living there (early 19th century, perhaps earlier?), so it’s not surprising. Disappointing, but there you go.

So who was this Nat Nutter? Well, the description of her as “a witch and fortune teller” suggests that she was what is known as a ‘wise woman’ or ‘cunning woman‘ – a sort of combination of healer, folk magician, and someone who divines for fortune or lost objects. A particularly important function they performed was the production of spells and magically protective charms, as well as being a first port of call for medical matters, especially those involving pregnancy and abortion. They were common from the medieval period until the early part of the 20th century.

Whoever she was in reality, she was still remembered by 1910. Her name, though. Well, her name is suspicious, and is perhaps a construction – Nat Nutter, living in Gnat Hole Wood? Hmmmm. Also, the Nutter part recalls Alice Nutter, the Pendle Witch executed in 1612. It all seems a little too good to be true! But perhaps this was deliberate, the name adding to the mysterious otherness of the scary woman who lived in the woods by a stream that she used as a witch’s cauldron.

Nat 4 — The old ways are not too dead – this tree is overlooking the brook.

Marvellous stuff.

Please feel free to comment, even if just to tell me that you are related to Nat Nutter, and that I have libelled her.

Stay safe, and look after yourselves and each other. More to follow soon(ish).

Until then I remain, your humble servant,

Folk Tales · Postcards

Haunted House Update

January 10, 2020 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

Happy New Year, dear and gentle readers. The first post of a new decade is just a quick one to fill in the gap whilst I finish a much longer post on the subject of Lean Town… all will be revealed soon.

So, a few months back I blogged about some postcards I bought on Ebay, and one in particular really caught my attention. The blog post is here, if you want to refresh your memories, and this is the postcard that piqued my interest, and made me buy them from a chap in America:

Post11 — Top oth’ Nab, Glossop, October 21st 1907.

I love a good ghost story – one of my absolute pleasures is reading MR James stories by the fire – so the writing on the card that read “this is the haunted house” sealed the deal of me buying the cards. In the original post I though that the hunted house might be Herod Farm.

Roll on New Year’s Day 2020, and slightly bleary eyed and thick-headedly (courtesy of the Goosefields – thanks again!), Clans Hamnett and Bowes ascended Whitley Nab from The Hare and Hounds. It blew the cobwebs away (and if I’m honest, knackered me out – new year’s resolution is to get fitter), but we made it – and this is the site that greeted me.

It looked familiar. And then it hit me… the ridgeline of Coombes Edge, and the skyline… this was the haunted house photograph. The haunted house was, in fact, Herod Edge Farm, just off Monk’s Road – visible, just, in the trees, middle ground. Here’s a map.

Haunted 2 — Herod Edge Farm is circled in red, my photograph was taken from the area of the green arrow, the original photograph was taken from the blue arrow, or thereabouts.

Compare the two photographs, and although it’s taken from a slightly different angle, there are so many features in common that I can say with certainty that this is the place. Herod Edge Farm is haunted… apparently. I wonder if they know? And more importantly, does anyone know the story of the haunting? I wonder if it is tied up with alleged ghostly Roman soldiers in the area? Someone must know – as I say, I love a good ghost story.

I should add that, since that post, a whole pile of information has been uncovered, largely by the ever helpful Charles Wynford Lodge (who is on twitter as @2hrTV, check him out). I will do a full re-write including all his information, as well as corrections and addenda on other previous posts, too. See, I do listen… honest!

In the meantime, I’m off to drink some of the stuff that nourishes and try and finish some other exciting work (oddly, involving a parrot and the High Medieval period… no, it’s not a set up for a joke). Oh, and the Lean Town post will be up and running very soon (it’s a two-parter!).

Until then, I remain.

Your humble servant,

Folk Tales · Postcards

A Parcel of Postcards… and a Puzzle

August 4, 2019August 10, 2019 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

Well, four to be precise.

What ho! What ho! What ho! and all that (raising a glass to you, H & S).

I often spend a bit of time on the internet, and in particular on ebay, looking at all sorts of Glossop and area related things and obscurities. In between wishing I had more money (all donations will be gratefully received) and marvelling at just what people on ebay are trying to sell (and, by extension, what crap people are willing to buy) I occasionally come across an interesting object. Postcards are only interesting if the subject is interesting, but usually I just save a copy of the picture and move on. However, I found a group of four postcards of the “High Peak, Derbyshire, UK” mentioning Glossop, being sold by a chap in America which piqued my interest. Although there was nothing particularly special about the subjects – nice photographs though they are – I was intrigued by the writing on two of them.

First, the ‘boring’ postcards.

The first is titled “Chinley, from Eccles Pike No.2”, and shows exactly what it says.

Post8

post9

The postcard hasn’t been posted, so there is no stamp or postmark, and was probably inserted with a letter, and the whole posted. The message on the back reads: “To wish you both a very happy and prosperous new year from Mr and Mrs G.S. Gregory, Fox Holes”. Foxholes is in an area of Chinley called Whitehough, which fits the postcard view.

Next up is this view of the North Road entrance to Howard Park, or “Park. Top Entrance” as it is helpfully titled.

post6 — Park keeper’s cottage, Howard Park.

The building and gates are still there, as you can see in this modern view of the place.

post14 — Surprisingly, very little has changed in the 100 years.

The back of the card, then.

post7 — Mrs Broadbottom (I think) and Miss Woods, helpfully written in thick pen and at a jaunty angle

It has been posted, and stamped “Glossop” (Glossop post office) and dated August 4th 1905, and was for the 9.30 post. The message reads “Dear Lib. Mrs Broadbottom (?) and Miss Woods will not be able to come on Sunday. Lizzie and I will come if it will suit you. With love from L & R.” One hopes that Lizzie and ‘I’ were a suitable replacement for what was clearly a comedy double act of Mrs Broadbottom and Miss Woods… but alas, we’ll never know. The address, however, is interesting:

Nurse Ardern, Union Hospital, Chamber Hill, Ashton Under Lyne

Frustratingly, I can’t find a Nurse Lib (Elizabeth?) Ardern in the 1901 or 1911 censuses, nor anywhere else I have looked (please feel free to have a look yourselves), but it is interesting. The Union Hospital is actually the Workhouse in Ashton, and the building is now part of Tameside General Hospital. Here is a view of the Hospital in 1905, the same date as the postcard – perhaps Nurse Ardern is one of the ladies in the photograph.

Postcard 2 — The Ashton Union Workhouse in 1905.

The above photograph was taken from a very informative website that gives the history of the Ashton Union Workhouse – go check it out here.

Now, the first of the interesting postcards, and one that contained a mystery! “Oooooooh” I hear you cry…

The view is of Howard Park again – this time the swimming baths and that end of the park. The view has not massively changed, as the lower photograph shows.

post5 — Howard Park and the swimming baths, chimney, and Wood’s monument, all built by the Wood family in the late 1880’s.

post15 — Almost the same view, today. Too many trees to get the exact shot, but you can just make out the chimney, the white ornamental windows of the baths, and the base of the Wood’s statue.

Now, the mystery. The card is once again addressed to Nurse Ardern at the Union Hospital. It is marked and dated Glossop, October 10th 1905, and stamped for the 9.30pm post. The inscription is simple: “Bottles. Have you looked under the stamp yet. Topsy”. It sounds like a letter from a PG Wodehouse novel (are Bottles and Topsy members of the Drones Club?). Bottles must be a pet name for Nurse Ardern, and Topsy? Who knows? A suitor? A brother? There is a familiarity about it that suggests either. But what’s this about a stamp? I looked, and no, the stamp had not been tampered with; Bottles had evidently not looked under it.

post3 — To Bottles, from Topsy… via Jeeves and Wooster.

With slight fear and trepidation, I made a cup of tea, and using the steam from the kettle, I steamed off the stamp. What was under it? A heart? A love note? A secret spy code? A crude drawing of some male genitalia? (the heady days of early Edwardian Britain saw society throw off the shackles of Victorian prudishness, so who knows?). Carefully, I peeled back the stamp, and this is what I saw:

post4 — Ladies and gentlemen, the comedy styling of Topsy.

It is just the card maker’s mark (Raphael Tuck and Sons), and nothing remotely interesting. Bugger! Two possibilities suggest themselves here:

Topsy has a particularly weak sense of humour, and the ‘joke’ is that there is nothing under the stamp (oh, my sides. Nurse, the screens… etc. that last being especially appropriate). No, even a badly drawn willy would have been funnier.
The postcard is referring to another postcard or letter, and Topsy is reminding Bottles to look under its stamp.

Either way, I was as disappointed as you probably are right now.

This last postcard is not disappointing, though, and should make up for the above.

We’ll start with the back – and a particularly interesting one it is.

post10 — A letter to America all the way from Glossop.

It is addressed to a Mr J S Crowther, 506 Greene Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, USA. It is postmarked Glossop, and dated Oct 21 1907, and stamped for the 7.30pm post. It is counterstamped ‘Brooklyn, NY’ with a date of October 30th 1907, and time stamped 8pm. This is presumably the time and date that the postcard landed in the USA – nine days to cross the Atlantic is quite impressive. There is nothing else written on the back, and the identity of Mr Crowther remains a mystery (as does his relationship with the postcard’s subject, as we shall see). His house in Brooklyn is still standing, though:

Postcard 1 — 506 Greene Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, at the end of the row.

Right then, the subject of the postcard, and the reason I bought the quartet of postcards in the first place:

The subject is “Top oth’ Nab, Glossop”. Whitley Nab, of course, and you can indeed see the top in this quite atmospheric photograph. And in the mid ground, to the right, there is a building amidst a series of field walls. It is a good photograph anyway, but what drew me to it was the handwritten note at the top:

“This is the haunted house. Oct 21st ’07. T. Arden”

I’m not a big believer in the supernatural, but I am a lover of folklore and of ghost stories, and I knew I had to have it!

Well, where to start? I have looked at contemporary OS maps of the Nab, and am almost certain that the photograph is of Herod Farm; the location and the field boundaries all seem to make sense

post13 — If anyone wants to double check, please mail me if I’m incorrect

I find it interesting that Mr Crowther knew the area well enough that he didn’t need any further explanation of either the place, or the haunted house and its story. He must have been an emigre to the States from Glossop. The handwritten note is signed T. Arden – is this ‘Toppy’? And there is surely a relationship to the Nurse Arden, too – the coincidence of the name is too much. And how did they all end up in the America? Did Nurse Arden retire to the States? I would love to know the answers to these questions – any thoughts, anyone? But more importantly, what is the ghost story attached to Herod Farm? Does anyone know?

If you do, please let me know via email or twitter. Or, for that matter, any other ghost story or note of folklore you know about the Glossop area – I’ll happily take what I can! Just get in touch!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed a wander round some old photographs. I’ll post an update if anything come from this post. Until then, I remain,

Your humble servant,

Stones of Glossop

The White Stone of Roe Cross

October 6, 2018October 7, 2018 Tim Campbell-Green6 Comments

So, a while back I went looking for the White Stone of Roe Cross… and failed miserably in my mission.

As I said here, it is mentioned in Sharpe’s book “Crosses of the Peak District” as potentially marking the junction of the boundaries of Matley, Hollingworth, and Mottram, so I thought it would be worth a look, and maybe make a comment on what, where, and why.

I did some digging (pun fully intended), and came up with very little; it has almost zero presence online (other than this letter), and other than a modern book (about more, later), virtually nothing but an oblique reference. I began to despair… until I started to dig a little further – my ‘spidey sense’ began to tingle. Summat wants fettling, thought I.

What I did come across time and again was a reference to the legend of Sir Ralph de Staley, and his relation to Roe Cross, and the Roe Cross. Now, the story of Sir Ralph de Staley (Staveley or Stavelegh or Staveleigh – there are numerous spellings), is a variant of “The Disguised Knight”, a story trope that can be traced back to at least Homer’s ‘Odyssey’. Our story, culled from several sources, runs like this.

With Richard I, Sir Ralph sets sail on a crusade leaving behind his wife, Elizabeth, and estate. By and by, and following many great battles, he is captured by the Saracens, and held for many years in a dungeon. Eventually, he gains his freedom, takes on the appearance of a Palmer (a pilgrim), and pays a visit to the pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land. One night, in Jerusalem, he had a prophetic dream “boding ill to his wife and home far away”, and so, invoking the intercession of the Virgin, he prayed and presently fell asleep.

Upon awakening, he immediately knew something was different – “before him, shining fair in the summer sunlight, rich in fulsome melody of singing birds, was a fair English landscape, and beyond it his own ancestral hall of Staley”. He had been miraculously transported home.

He set off for his house, and came upon a faithful old servant and his favourite dog, who presently recognised him. He told Sir Ralph that his wife, who had finally given up all hope and now believed him dead, was to be married the following day. So off he jogs to his hall, and asks to see the lady of the house. He is refused, but begs a drink of Methyglin (a type of spiced mead, apparently), and after draining the cup, pops his ring into it, and begs the maid to take it to her lady. She does, his wife recognises the ring as belonging to her husband, and asks an important question “if it be Sir Ralph himself, he will know of a certain mole on me, which is known to none but to him” (racy stuff, this). Of course, all ends well and happily, and the bounder that is trying to get Sir Ralph’s lands and his missus, is ejected rapidly into the night. And quite right, too.

So ends the story.

Staleyhall — The 15th Century timber-framed Staley Hall before being done up. That is truly one of the most depressing photographs I have ever seen. How we can let our history end up in this state…

Staleyhall2 — That’s better, although the wall at the front is a little off putting. The restoration work here is particularly good.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. As a post script, most versions of the story (there are about 5, each with subtly different aspects) state that a cross was erected either where Sir Ralph meets the servant and dog, or where he wakes up following his miraculous movement. This is the Roe Cross – Ro, or Roe, apparently, being a shortened version of Ralph. Indeed, several sources mention a cross standing on the old road from Stalybridge to Mottram. But where is the cross? There is certainly not one there now, nor is there any evidence attesting to one. There is, however, the White Stone.

Ok, so here is what I think happened.

I don’t think there ever was a cross, not as such. None of the sources I consulted actually describes a cross, only that one was there (as told by the story and indicated by the name), or that there are the “remains of an ancient cross” on the road there (and thus presumably referring to the White Stone). It seems that the White Stone and the Roe Cross have become intertwined. Ralph Bernard Robinson, in his book ‘Longdendale: Historical and Descriptive Sketches‘ (1863) illustrates this perfectly by noting the existence of both cross and stone as separate monuments, but he only describes the stone, not the cross. I would argue that it doesn’t/didn’t exist.

It is most likely the name Roe Cross is derived from ‘roads cross’; the area is, after all, the junction of seven roads – Harrop Edge Road, Matley Lane, Gallowsclough Road, Mottram Road (Old Road), Hobson Moor Road and Dewsnap Lane. Indeed, according to Dodgson’s Place Names of Cheshire (Vol.1, p.315), there seems to be no reference to Roe Cross prior to 1785 (although this may turn out to be incorrect, with further research).

So far, so good… now bear with me. The White Stone is a marker stone, marking tracks over the tops, and/or marking the boundaries of Matley, Stalybridge, and Hollingworth, and it has been there from the year dot. As a feature in the landscape, it was given a story, as all such features are – they accumulate stories, because people have an intrinsic need to have a relationship with their environment – and it takes on a personality, and gains a biography. As the archaeologist Richard Bradley says of monuments “they dominate the landscape of later generations so completely, that they impose themselves on their consciousness”. The story of Sir Ralph (whether ‘true’ or not) was given as a way of explaining both name – Roe Cross – and reason for the existence of the marker stone. In fact, in Ralph Bernard Robinson’s account of the legend, Sir Ralph wakes up “beside a large stone”, and later on notes that “tradition points out the stone under which he found himself laid: and a queer old stone it is.” Clearly he is describing this from his own personal experience, and surely there can be only one stone that is worth pointing out in the Roe Cross area… it has to be The White Stone.

As a postscript to the postscript, Sir Ralph and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Stayley, are supposedly buried in St Michael and All Angel’s church, Mottram. There are two 15th Century carved effigies that are to be found in the Stayley Chapel there, which almost certainly are meant to represent the good knight and his wife, and which were originally placed against the south wall of the chapel. As Aikin in his ‘Description of the Country Thirty to Forty Miles Round Manchester’ (1795) notes, “many fabulous stories concerning them are handed down by tradition among the inhabitants”.

Staly 2 — Sir Ralph and Lady Elizabeth de Staley. This taken from the official guide to Mottram Church here.

So then, the White Stone. Well, I still haven’t found it! But I do know a bit more about it, and now – drum roll please – I have a photograph of the bloody thing, stolen shamelessly from Keith Warrender’s book ‘Manchester Oddities‘. I heartily recommend this book, as it’s chock full of just the sort of odd bits of history that this blog looks at. Buy it here. Or better yet, order and buy it from Bay Tree Books – buy local and keep independent shops afloat.

So here is the offending stone, in whose shade, Sir Ralph found himself transported from the holy land.

White Stone a — The White Stone of Roe Cross – it is indeed a “queer old stone”.

The reason for it being white is presumably to make it stand out, to ensure this important stone (boundary marker, track marker, or teleportation stone) is kept vividly different from any other in the area. Apparently it’s now on private property, which would explain why I couldn’t find it last time I went looking for it. I’m not sure of its exact location, but somewhere in the vicinity of White Stone Cottage would seem to make sense. Here is the drawing in Sharpe’s ‘Crosses of the Peak District‘.

White Stone b — Not very cross base shaped, but then I haven’t seen it close up. Yet.

I love it when a legend has a physical mark in the landscape, it makes it more real, and as I say, it is a natural instinct in humans to build stories around their places. I recently led a guided archaeological tour of Alderley Edge, which looked at the Legend of the Wizard through an archaeological lens, and this same element, on a smaller scale, was at play here. Place and story working together, informing and shaping each other.

Apologies for the slightly rambling nature of this blog post, but I hope you enjoyed it.

As always, comments and questions are most welcome.

Your humble servant,

Archaeology · Stones of Glossop

Some Questions Solved

October 3, 2018October 6, 2018 Tim Campbell-GreenLeave a comment

Greetings all

So, I received a pair of emails recently, and both of them answered an outstanding question that has been bugging me for some time.

Answers people, we actually have answers! I asked, you listened, and by Great Zeus (or Arnomecta, perhaps) you answered.

So, drum roll please…

THE STONE IN ST JAMES’S CHURCHYARD, WHITFIELD.

I mused here on the possibility that a large, out of place, stone in the churchyard St James’s, Whitfield, might be part of the base of the Hollin Cross that almost certainly stood at the junction there, on Hollincross Lane.

Hollincross 1 — Here is the stone in St James’s – not a cross base!

I was wrong. And how!

I got an email from Louise Seville which states:

“My father-in-law Neal Seville had some connection with the church (Sunday school??), I think in the 1970s. He was giving a talk based on the parable of the wise man and the foolish man. He and his friend Bert Taylor from Chunal, brought the stone from Bert’s own small quarry at the back of his house on Chunal. The stone was moved on a truck – Bert had a haulage company. The stone was used in church to illustrate the story and was abandoned in the churchyard afterwards as it proved to be too difficult to move. Neal said that in the future people would wonder how the stone got there and come to all sorts of conclusions! “

And how right he was!

So there we have it folks. I genuinely think that it was bonkers to use a stone that size to illustrate the parable, no matter how factually correct! But apparently that was about right for Neal, who got up to all sorts of capers. Here is the parable, for those of you that slept through Sunday School.

So my thanks to Louise and Eddie Seville for solving the mystery. And, of course, thanks to the late Neal Seville for providing one in the first place.

Now, the next one has bugged me for years, so I am truly grateful for its solution.

THE ODDLY SHAPED CERAMIC OBJECTS

I asked for ideas about these bits of pottery that Sandra T. and I had found. They were so oddly shaped, and so similar in production, that they must have had a single, very specialised, purpose. But what purpose, that was the question.

Pot Mystery 2 — The puzzling pieces of pottery

Well, bam! An email from the wonderful Eddie Picton arrived in my inbox the other day.

May I suggest that they are “creel peg pivots” as used in textile machinery. A roving bobbin had sliver wound on it, this was then put upon a creel peg and then put in following machine creel. The lower end then would be free to rotate on the ceramic with minimal friction. I worked in the last spinning mill in Oldham, the last of this type of creel was scrapped in the early 1990s, the mill finally closing 2002.

The connection between the object and the place – both connected with weaving and spinning – made this very likely, and it is not an interpretation I had thought of before. I did a bit of research, and began to understand how they would have worked. Yes, it seemed to fit.

Last night, Eddie was at the Glossop and Longdendale Archaeological Society talk on ‘Melandra – Past and Future’ given by Mike Brown and Roger Hargreaves (and very good it was too). He gave me this drawing of how the creel peg pivot would have worked and where it sat in the machine.

Our pottery pieces are those marked ‘Pot’ in the picture, with the bobbin/creel peg sitting in the hollow, glazed, part of the mystery object. They are tapered slightly so that they can fit into the holes in the frame.

These are those, in situ, in Styal Mill. The photo is Eddie’s.

So that’s that solved! Thanks for that, Eddie, you’re a star. And it seems I owe you a drink… I’m as good as my word. See you on the first Tuesday of November.

I have another blog almost ready to go, so fingers crossed you’ll get a bumper crop of posts by the weekend.

As always, comments and questions are very welcome.

Oddities

More Mystery Stones

July 13, 2018July 13, 2018 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

I love train journeys. Even the daily commute has something adventure-like about it. It’s also non-time, time spent sitting, waiting for the destination to arrive. My time to sit and think, read, and listen to music. And to write, of course. Gentle reader, I am writing this sitting on the 17.25 train from Piccadilly Station heading home to Glossop – the joys of having a new phone. We slow down as we approach Guide Bridge station, and there the post begins.

For the last umpteen years I have been commuting up and down this track, and I feel like I know every inch of it, in all seasons and in all weathers. But I have been utterly perplexed by two stones at the end of one of the platforms at Guide Bridge station (the one opposite the new ticket office, on which the train stops if you are going to Glossop from Manchester). These are the fellows:

Guide Bridge Posts 1 — Not my photo, alas. I had several nice close-ups, but I cannot find them in any of my files.

There they sit, painted and mysterious. I was so intrigued a few years ago, that I got off the train and had a closer look. They stand about a foot tall, and taper to a mushroom head. They are painted black and white, as you can see, and have the letters ‘I’ and ‘G’ carved into them. I am not certain what they are made from, either. It is is either concrete with very small pebbly bits added, or a coarse grained conglomerate stone. What I find intriguing is that the letters are done in a very old way – almost Georgian, or even earlier. Also, someone has taken the time to paint them with some degree of care – top, bottom, and letters are carefully marked out, and despite this being a busy, and recently modernised station. They must, in their present location, post-date the 1970’s updating of the station, but I feel certain they have been moved. The only mention of them I could find online is here, where the suggestion is that they represent “posts defining the area controlled by different District Engineers or suchlike”, with ‘G’ being Glossop, although the ‘I’ is still unexplained.

And there the matter ended… until last year. The train stopped just outside Guide Bridge to allow another train through, and I tiredly looked out of the window, blinked, and nearly yelled. Could it be? Yes, it was… another stone. Fumbling for my phone, all I could make out was the letter ‘G’, and then the train moved on before I could get a photograph. Bugger! Since then I have been trying to get the right set of circumstances to allow me that shot again. And a few months ago, I managed it!

Guide Bridge Posts 4 — A map of the area. The original posts on the platform are marked 1, the new post is marked 2.

And here is the new stone:

Guide Bridge Posts 2 — Difficult to spot, but it sits against the wall.

Guide Bridge Posts 3 — And in close-up, the carved ‘G’ is visible.

It’s clearly the same thing – same shape, size, and even the antiquated way the letter have been carved is clear. And it too has been painted black and white, and in the same design, at some stage in the relatively recent past. It is no longer cared for in the same way, I suspect, as it is now overgrown and seemingly forgotten. I wonder too, if it was originally part of a pair, and the ‘I’ post has gone? Anyway, there the matter ended.

Or so I thought.

Pulling into Hatterseley station a few weeks ago, coming from Glossop, I was looking out of the right hand side of the train, and just after the big road bridge that carries the A560/Stockport Road, down, and tucked into a nook in the wall, I spotted two more of the things. They are situated where the end of the Hattersley Tunnel No.1 came out (long before Hattersley Station was built) – here on the map.

Guide Bridge Posts 5 — New posts marked 3

I have no photo, as the train is always in motion at this point, though I might try and get a shot off with my new phone (snazzy camera, apparently). Two of them, mossy and overgrown, but the same shape, if a little shorter. No paint that I can see, but they might have been originally. The letters are ‘I’ and ‘G’ again, but they run the opposite way to those at Guide Bridge (‘G’ and ‘I’ as opposed to ‘I’ and ‘G’).

I am now intrigued to the point of obsession! So then, the question is. What are they? There must be someone out there who knows. Surely!

I know they are technically not Glossop related, but I thought as so many of my gentle and wonderful readers commute, and that everyone loves a good mystery, you would forgive the misuse of the blog. Anyway, if nothing else, it will give you a chance to play i-spy on your next train journey, trying to spot the posts (the Hattersley ones are hard – blink and you will miss them).

There will be more posts this weekend too, real Glossop history ones. With pottery and other goodies!

As always, answers and comments are most welcome.

Archaeology · Oddities

A Puzzling Piece of Pottery

June 29, 2018June 30, 2018 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

Evening all. The third blog post of June… see, I am trying.

Anyway, this one should (hopefully) provoke a bit of a response. I say hopefully because, dear and precious readers… I need a favour.

Some back story.

I received an email from the wonderful Sandra T. some months ago, asking whether I knew anything about this piece of pottery that she had found in Manor Park. She, like most of the people who read this blog, pick up random things they find interesting, which is to be commended (although, apparently, she keeps them in a clock… but let’s not judge).

Pot Mystery 1 — The mystery object – AA battery for scale. Copyright Sandra T.

Now, I had no idea what it was, but it rang a bell. a brief search through my ‘interesting things’ box, and lo!

So now we have three of these mystery objects. I found mine in an old dump near Broadbottom, which at the latest was 1910’s, but was generally earlier – say 1890’s – which at least gives us a time period to look at.

Interesting. I thought I’d do this post eventually, as someone out there might know what , when, and why.

Last month my new neighbour (hello Simon A.) partly demolished and rebuilt a wall on our property line, and in the process discovered that the whole wall sits on a bed of pottery and other domestic waste. This mountain of material will be the subject of a future post, especially as it makes a fairly coherent deposit, thus can tell us interesting things. The wall can only have been built post 1850-ish, and definitely before 1860, which gives us a clear date, too. Amongst the bits and pieces was this:

Pot Mystery 3 — Another one… what are they?

So now we have four of them.

They are roughly conical, tapering to the base, measure between 10 and 12mm high, 13-14mm across the top, and roughly 11mm across the bottom. The bottom is flat, the top is hollow in a perfect hemisphere (I say top and bottom, but actually they might work either way up). Some are glazed all over, but one is only glazed on the interior of the hollow. This last point is important, and may hold the key to understanding what they are; it matters that only this bit is glazed, i.e. waterproof, not the rest of the object. Why? Also, they are clearly mass produced, and have a very specific role… but what?

I have two suggestions, both of which may work, but equally they are guesswork!

1) Kiln furniture. When you fire pots in a mass group, as they were being in the Victorian period, you need to keep the plates, etc. separate in the kiln, or the heat won’t circulate properly and you end up with poorly fired plates. These spacers were made in their millions, and were about the same size and shape. Though what they would be doing here in Glossop – not known for it pottery kilns – is anyone’s guess.

2) A way of selling medicine. The little hollow bit is glazed, but the exterior isn’t, so perhaps the medicine was stored in that bit, and scraped out when needed? Or it held a single pill that could be crushed in the hollow?

So over to you. Please, please comment and let me know what you think. The question is very simple. What on earth are they?

I’ll buy a drink for anyone who can tell me, with proof, what they are.

Oddities · Stones of Glossop

A Little Mystery Stone

September 21, 2017September 22, 2017 Tim Campbell-Green3 Comments

Here’s a strange one, and one that may have a perfectly reasonable explanation, but it is a bit of a mystery.

First some context. I have always been intrigued by free-standing stones, and the multiple uses to which people put them. From glacial erratics to carved crosses, and from prehistoric standing stones marking a ritual space to boundary stones marking a modern urban district boundary, we rely on the natural material as a marker, as we have since we first found a need to mark place. There is something very human about a stone marker. A lot of my work in archaeology has been involved exploring space, and how we mark it, how we make it different from other space (specifically, in my case cemeteries and ritual places). I won’t get too bogged down in the detail here – I have a bigger post planned that explores some of these themes (you’ve been warned… and there will be questions afterwards), but for now, I present the first entry in a series entitled “The Stones of Glossop” that will explore the multitude of free-standing stones that populate the area.

And it is a bit of an odd one.

Walking on Hague Street, heading toward Derbyshire Level, and just past King Charles Court, the road bends to the left and passes very close to the 17th Century House there. Just on the corner of the house, and placed on the kerb, is a small stone.

Less than a foot high, rectangular, and dirty, it was once painted white, making it very visible, one assumes, in darkness. What makes this stone particularly interesting is the neat cross carved on the front.

White Stone 1 — The stones of the 17th Century house are clearly visible behind, with what, I have just noticed, looks like a face carved into the uppermost stone in the photograph. Coincidence, obviously, but spooky nonetheless!

The cross is of the Christian variety, with an elongated vertical piece, and is very clearly intentional, with the grime of the road and many winters highlighting the effect. There may be other marks on the front surface, but it is difficult to tell if they are intentional or the result of wear and tear. It is worn, especially on the right hand side, but not as much as I would expect if it were particularly old, especially situated by a roadside, and the stone has largely maintained its rectangular shape. It has also been painted fairly recently; this may be the continuation of a tradition of painting roadside stones, or it might have been done for the first time two years ago.

White Stone 2 — Close up of the stone and the cross.

It may be modern – although that would be perhaps surprising – or it may be older – in which case, why does no one mention it in any of the texts? It could be a road marker, but there is a massive building behind it that marks the road in a much more clear way! And what is the purpose of the cross? I suppose in some way it should be considered a roadside cross, but if that is the case, I’m not sure how to interpret it. I quite literally know nothing about this oddity.

Any thoughts, anyone?

Archaeology · Oddities

The Letter ‘R’

September 21, 2017September 21, 2017 Tim Campbell-Green2 Comments

At the bottom of St Mary’s Road, on the left hand side, and just behind the back yard of The Retreat beauty salon, there is a gatepost next to the footpath. It is a fairly standard, if precisely carved, gatepost, and much like many of the others you would find in the area. However, this one has a large upper case letter ‘R’ carved expertly into its face.

Letter R 1 — The letter ‘R’ beautifully carved.

I have no clue why it was carved, nor who did it, nor when. The buildings in this part of Glossop centre are among the oldest (1840’s or thereabouts), and the letter style certainly suggests Victorian origin, and probably early Victorian – the large serifs recalls Georgian lettering. It has clearly been used as a gatepost multiple times, with different gate sizes and shapes, and even paint colours – you can see the evidence in the form of holes and paint. Importantly, most of these were placed over the carving, so post-date it.

Letter R 2 — Use and re-use – the evidence of the holes, fixings, and paint.

I checked the early maps for any idea, but nothing was shown that may explain its origin. I haven’t had time to check the census records, and these may shed some light on it, but as it stands… no idea! Whilst looking at the post, I found a child’s toy marble in the gutter – not a particularly old one, but it has seen some use, and is covered in scratches and chips. So obviously, I picked it up!

Marble — I can’t resist a find, even if it is not quite archaeology.

Any thoughts or suggestions regarding the letter on a postcard please (or you could just, you know, post a comment below).