Anwick Drake Stones Natural Rock Feature View all content for Anwick Drake Stones

I thought these two stones might be hidden away behind the church, overgrown and forgotten, but no. The glacial erratics stand outside the main entrance to the churchyard with the grass neatly trimmed from around them and I got the impression that the inhabitants of the pretty village of Anwick are rather proud of them. The larger stone (nearest the church) is about a metre high while the smaller stone is about half that – it’s hard to tell whether they were part of the same rock as the folk tale suggests or not, although the larger stone looks like it could have had a large chunk knocked off of it near ground level. It’s also difficult to know whether this was their original position, but why move the stones to stand outside a churchyard? Interestingly the churchyard appears to be roughly circular (I didn’t have time to fully check it out) and it is said that before the original stone was moved and broken (if it was ever moved) that a Dr Oliver ‘attested that it was of druidic origin’ A local curiosity, or the subject of pagan idolatry – who knows… Lovely little village though.

Posted by Chris Collyer 17th June 2003ce

Comments (0)
You must be logged in to add a comment