This stone is at Putts Corner, a crossroads on Gittisham Hill, and near numerous barrows. It now finds itself in the shrubbery of the Hare and Hounds Inn. There’s a nice little watercolour sketch from 1855 on the East Devon National Landscape website, annotated as follows:
Block of stone on Honiton Hill at Putt’s Corner or Hunter’s Lodge, concerning which several traditions are current in the neighbourhood: – as how the Witches used to sacrifice their victims on it – how some fabulous person used to bury his money under it, – and so on.
I also found that “According to legend this stone possesses a distinct and decidedly reprehensible character of its own, for it goes to “have a drink” at Sydmouth every night. Moreover, no horse has ever been known to pass it without attempting either to shy or bolt.” (From the ‘English Illustrated’ quoted in the Manchester City News, 30th June 1906).
Or has it got another motive?:
Sir, – The Rolling Stone at Putt’s Corner must receive a glance from less than one per cent of the motorists who drive past. Yet it is the subject of an interesting local tradition, according to which it used to stand on end as one of the supports of a sacrificial altar. At midnight, when the moon is full, the story goes, it occasionally rolls itself down to the River Sid, there to attempt to wash away the blood stains of its human victims. The stone is a sarsen (not found naturally in the immediate neighbourhood) and its weight is computed to be about one ton. – Bywayman, Somerset.
(From Country Life, 9th May 1957). If it just rolls itself to the source of the river, that seems to be just down the road to the west (much easier than going all the way to Sidbury).
Another tale has it that “it danced at night when it heard the bells of Sidbury Church” (mentioned by Mr Pearse Chope to the Devonshire Association, reported in the Western Times 22nd July 1927).
I read a very imaginative article about various people actually seeing the stone rolling. But it’s in a 1970s newspaper feature called ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ – I’ve seen enough of these to know they’re made up on the spot (John Macklin I’m looking at you). That would be too silly. And terrifying.