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Image of Bob Pyle’s Studdie (Natural Rock Feature) by thelonious

05/05/2016 – I believe the large boulder on the right, towards the bottom is the one called Bob Pyle’s Studdie.

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Folklore

Bob Pyle’s Studdie
Natural Rock Feature

Bob Pyle’s Studdie might well be a ‘natural rock feature’ – it’s a large sandstone boulder – but it’s deemed worthy of Scheduled Monument status. A ‘studdie’ was a local word for an anvil, and Bob Pyle allegedly a blacksmith who lived in Rothbury in the 19th century*. It’s on the western slope of Simonside.

This is all mentioned on the Northumberland National Park website, which also suggests that the boulder could have had significance for those bringing animals up the holloway onto the hilltop. There are a number of Bronze Age cairns around here too.

But an anvil on a hill.. oh how I would like this to belong to someone a bit more legendary and supernatural, with lightning bouncing off it when they thump it. Maybe Mr Pyle was quite a legend. Or maybe he was just the latest person for the anvil to be associated with? (ever hopeful) And might not a duergar have a use for an anvil?

I wonder if it looks convincingly like an anvil?

(*certainly the Pyles were the blacksmithing family at one time, as you can see from this locally memorable mishap here. But it’s not Bob.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=dEEJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA155)

Sites within 20km of Bob Pyle’s Studdie