Four miles west of Bridlington is the village of Rudston. Within its churchyard, there is something quite stupendous. In my judgement, it deserves the label "awesome" when so many things that purport to be awesome are not really awesome at all.
Standing twenty six feet above the ground, it is the tallest standing stone in The British Isles. Furthermore, some experts have concluded that another eighteen to twenty feet of stone lie below ground level. Quite amazing.
Nobody knows for sure how long The Rudston Monolith has stood in that place but it was there many centuries before All Saints Church was built next to it by Normans. Knowledgeable archaeologists have determined that it has probably been in situ for over four thousand years.
Carefully studying the surrounding landscape, others have suggested that the monolith was once central to a pagan cult and that the current church stands on the very ground where there was once some sort of pagan temple.
Early Christians were very cunning that way - commandeering pagan sites in order to win over local inhabitants whose associations with paganism went right back through the mists of time. Normally those early Christians sought to obliterate evidence of previous belief systems that were invariably connected with fertility, water sources, the sun, the moon and the skies above.
However, at Rudston they left the huge stone and probably affixed one of their crosses to the top of it. That might be what saved the monolith. Another name for a cross is a "rood" and so the village became "Rood-stane" which evolved into the modern name Rudston.
But where did the huge gritstone come from and how was it made to stand upright? It is estimated that The Rudston Monolith weighs approximately thirty tons. It was probably hauled to Rudston from Cayton Bay - some ten miles away. If that is true, it was an incredible feat but the actual process involved remains unknown and how the stone was made to stand upright is also pure guesswork.
I freely admit that I am enamoured with such places, such ancient evidence of past human life and if I hadn't been with Shirley and Phoebe on our Bridlington mini-break, I would have been doing some proper walking and exploring in the surrounding district. Mind you, there would have been no answers to stumble across - just a tantalising sense of what once was - long, long ago.
Shirley, Phoebe and Lam-Lam by the monolith.
Shirley, Phoebe & Lam-Lam let me see the height of Rudston Monolith.
ReplyDeleteNeither limestone nor granite. Gritstone. And another 20 feet of it below ground ...
Henry Moore, Yorkshire sculptor & veteran of WWI, must have run his hands
hands over the pitted surface of the monolith. Imagine it on a moonlit night !
Awesome! (Couldn't resist. Feels like I'm in a time capsule.)
ReplyDeleteSo many questions. What are the answers?
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty awe-inspiring standing stone alright!
ReplyDeleteI'm always fascinated by what came before in human history, and the things that have been left behind. I didn't know there was a monolith so close to you.
ReplyDeleteIt's a very striking monolith.
ReplyDeleteThat IS interesting. I'd never heard of this particular standing stone but it seems well worth visiting!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, awesome is the word that fits best here.
ReplyDeleteSuch puzzles or mysteries from the past are fascinating! They make me wish someone would invent a time machine, and scientists could go and check on how much of their theories are true and what needs to be rewritten. But of course, if there really was such a thing as a time machine, people would spoil it out of greed or even just pure sensationalism.
It is very striking, we went a couple of times and I could not get over the fact that it had to be hauled uphill to its position. Not sure that 'rollering' it up on timber poles would have worked.
ReplyDeleteYour post and the stone are awesome. If it wasn't for your family standing at the base and it would be in poor taste, I would say the stone looks rather phallic.
ReplyDeleteEngland's pyramids.
ReplyDeleteVery cool but why??? Who??? What????
ReplyDeleteI think we tend to view humans who lived thousands of years ago as less intelligent and knowledgable than we are which is completely ridiculous. They had the same brains we do and were obviously fantastically creative in their beliefs and how to express them. Pyramids, monoliths, giant heads- they dreamed them all up, they figured out how to carry out the dreams. In many ways we literally stand in their shadows.
ReplyDeleteThat is absolutely amazing. Now we shall have to visit!
ReplyDeleteThat's so interesting, Neil. I'm glad you posed Shirley, Phoebe and LamLam there to show us how giant that stone is. I wonder why a group hasn't explored how far down it goes. Isn't there new technology to do something like that??
ReplyDeleteI can guess tomorrow's blog post. Well done, Hull! Yay!
ReplyDeleteMy kind of history.
ReplyDelete