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Standing Stone / Menhir
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The bridge is said to be haunted by 'weary looking phantoms' - they cross the bridge in the gloaming, looking misty and depressed as though they've just staggered from the battle, and then 'pouf' melt into the dusk. Or so says Marc Alexander, in his completely unreferenced 'Companion to the folklore, myths and customs of Britain' (2002). He also calls the stone 'Arthur's Gravestone'.
Apparently there are two stones though?? Which is a bit confusing? One in the stream and one by the stream? The following from the Celtic Inscribed Stones doesn't exactly clarify things.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
There is some confusion about the exact history of this stone as it appears to have occasionally been mixed-up with a second, probably uninscribed stone which now lies in the stream.
Okasha/1993, records that the stone was first mentioned in 1602. By 1754 it had been used as a footbridge and then as part of a early 18th landscape folly. The stone is unlikely to have moved since at least 1799.
..the first recorded location of the stone was its use as part of a footbridge at Slaughterbridge. We do not know the original location.
..Nearby, in the early 18th century, Lady Dowager Falmouth created a kind of hill with spiral walks to which the stone was removed as decoration.
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Posted by Rhiannon
7th November 2005ce
Edited 7th November 2005ce
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