I visited Robin Hood's Stride on 23rd July after firstly visiting the nearby Andle Stone and Doll Tor circle. It's not too bad a climb to the top of the outcrop and the views from the top is worth the little effort.
From the top I noticed that you could see the Andle Stone on the horizon and it may be that Doll Tor stone circle lays on a direct line between the two. I had thought that (when leaving Doll Tor) the Andle Stone may have marked the sunrise when viewed from the circle, perhaps the linear arrangement stretched all the way to Robin Hood's Stride.
It does look a bit like a hippo (as Burl suggests) but it looks more like the Pink Panther. What a landscape, loved it as soon as I looked at it from the lane. I aim to spend more time there, perhaps with a picnik. I want to see the major moon rise between the ears!
Sunday 13 July 2003
On the way back to the car from Nine Stones Close stone circle, I quickly sprinted up Robin Hood's Stride to see if it was worth an 'elevated context*' snap of my now beloved Nine Stones Close, as I had a 300mm lens with me (it wasn't).
*I just made up some jargon! Anyone know what it means?
I was very impressed with Robin Hood's Stride itself and it's wacky shapes though, as well as the views it commands.
A gentle stroll of no more than half a mile from Nine Stones Close takes you to this magnificent natural outcrop of Robin Hood's Stride, where some attractive, muscly-legged young bucks were busy roping themselves to it and
scaling it's faces. We sat admiring the great trees growing out of it's crevasses and massive boulders hanging on the grassy slopes. Now THIS is a place to sit and contemplate your life.
This beautiful outcrop is the most dramatic of the area's proto temples.
The first circle builders must have been awe struck by this landscape.
Walk up to it from the B5056 along the limestone way breathe it all in, and then look across the fields to 9 Stones Close...breathtaking!
There is a convenient layby just below the site on the B5056 at 229619.
Cross the road and over the stile and follow the track up the hill.
Keep an eye out on your left, for a slim, leaning standing stone in the hedge line. It's not marked on the map, and upon closer inspection has a hole cut through it (as though to receive a bolt) and I would imagine it was once a gatepost.
Upon reaching the site, if you're up for it, a direct assault is possible, but there is a path on the right hand side, which makes for an easier ascent around the back.
A wonderful natural landmark, fluid, eroded masses of stone, rising up to two stacks set either end of a horizontal top. It has a pleasing organic quality to it. Large boulders seemingly weightlessly leaning on one another and out into thin air.
Also lacking in official heritage status as there are no protective railings or warnings on it, and although you can't fall more than twenty or so feet, please take care.
Great view down to the four stones of Nine Stones Circle.
There is so much 'territorial pissing' grafitti of names and initials carved all over the faces of the stones on it from past centuries, I didn't know where to begin looking for the prehistoric rock-art carving (...a large carved ring...on the south-eastern side of the outcrop on a wide horizontal ledge).
The large (50cm) circular carving is on a horizontal ledge, behind the Eastern 'chimney'. It was uncovered in the 1970's. And is of an uncertain age, the vegetation that covered it may have preserved it.
Careful if you go looking for this in the wet and if you suffer from vertigo.
The favourite resort of Robin Hood and Little John and their comrades, when they desired to enjoy the wine of which they had deprived some luxurious abbot or sheriff, was a remarkable group of stones or rocks near Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, where the outlaw is believed to have built a sylvan palace and reigned lord of all, in spite of the Norman [strengths?] of Haddon and Chatsworth. Two stones rise above their neighbours, and here an old tradition says that Robin sat on one and Little John on the other, delivering judgment on litigated matters of [..?] Law; while another tradition still older asserts that Robin leaped or stepped from the summit of one to the other to show his wondrous agility, and that in consequence the stones have ever since been called Robin Hood's Stride.
Page 272 in A Cunningham's 'Robin Hood Ballads' in 'The Boys' Own Story-Book' (1856). Online at Google Books.