Aldbourne Blowing Stone

Nearest town:
Marlborough (10km SW)
OS reference:
SU265756
OS sheet:
174
Latitude:
51° 28' 41.52 N
Longitude:
1° 37' 6.13 W
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Images

Image of Aldbourne Blowing Stone (Natural Rock Feature) by Chance

The Aldbourne Blowing Stone – All smashed up with no one to blow.

A lost piece of village history or an obstuction to modern living.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 16, 2008
Image of Aldbourne Blowing Stone (Natural Rock Feature) by Chance

The Aldbourne Blowing Stone – As you can see the stone is next to the village phone box and 3 meters from the Crown Inn. It has survived the water co., BT and the electric co. laying cables and digging trenchs around it.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 16, 2008
Image of Aldbourne Blowing Stone (Natural Rock Feature) by Chance

The Aldbourne Blowing Stone – If this is the famous stone, with a small deep hole at one end, then it looks like this section has been broken off.

Boys with toys, eh

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 16, 2008

Articles

Aldbourne Blowing Stone

Chance
Chance May 16, 2008

As you can see the stone is next to the village phone box and 3 meters from the Crown Inn. It has survived the water co., BT and the electric co. laying cables and digging trenches around it.

I have my doubts if this is the “Blowing Stone”. It fits the position for the description above, but as for the small deep hole at one end, it looks like this section has been broken off. The area were the grass is growing may had been where the small boys blew. Who knows. None of the locals I spoke to knew anything about it.

The stone lies opposite the village pond, which has half a dozen stones around it. Any one of these could be a “Blowing Stone” and some looked far more impressive.

The famous Blowing Stone at Uffington is much more of a man’s “Blowing Stone”, fit for a king.

Chance – May 2008

Miscellaneous

Aldbourne Blowing Stone
Natural Rock Feature
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Aug 23, 2004

Not the more famous Blowing Stone at Uffington, but another similarly holey sarsen. According to Katy Jordan (in ‘The Haunted Landscape’) this one lies near the Crown Inn in Aldbourne, on the pavement east of the village pond. It has a small deep hole at one end. Apparently it was ‘powerful enough to really get on villagers’ nerves when small boys repeatedly sounded the stone’. I was interested to read that the local blacksmith was hired (at some unspecified time) to plug the hole (a perfectly reasonable request, but it brought to my mind the mythological aspects of the blacksmith). Although the plug was (allegedly) later removed the stone is now silent. When KJ asked about it at the pub, no one seemed to know anything about it (her information originally came from a 1975 book by local author Ida Gandy).

Sites within 20km of Aldbourne Blowing Stone

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