The Hitching Stone | |
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![]() The Hitching Stone, showing the fissure and rectangular hole known as the druid’s chair | |
Location | Earl Crag, Yorkshire |
Nearest city | Bradford |
Coordinates | 53°52′17″N2°01′18″W / 53.871513°N 2.021789°W |
OS grid reference | SD9841 |
Elevation | 1,200 ft (370 m) |
Height | 21 ft (6.4 m) |
The Hitching Stone is a gritstone erratic block on Keighley Moor, North Yorkshire, near Earl Crag and the village of Cowling. [1] [2] [3] [4] It is very close to the border between North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire and the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire. [5]
It is said to be the largest boulder in Yorkshire at 29 feet (8.8 metres) long, 25 feet (7.6 metres) wide and 21 feet (6.4 metres) high. [6] It is also said to weigh a lot more than 1000 tonnes. [5]
The Hitching Stone is five miles (eight kilometres) from the town of Keighley and is at an elevation of 1,200 feet (370 metres). [7]
The Hitching Stone and all the other erratic boulders on Keighley Moor were put in place thousands to possibly millions of years ago during the Pleistocene Epoch. [5] [8] The Hitching Stone most likely originally came from Earl Crag during this time. [3] As a result of the fact that The Hitching Stone lies at the borders of historic counties, ancient councils and parliaments met at the stone and markets, fairs, and other gatherings were also held at the stone, with the last fair being held in 1870. [6] [9]
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and Derbyshire to the south, Greater Manchester to the south-west, and Lancashire to the west. The city of Leeds is the largest settlement.
Keighley is a market town and a civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford.
Craven was a non-metropolitan district in the west of North Yorkshire, centred on the market town of Skipton. The name Craven is much older than the modern district and encompassed a larger area. This history is also reflected in the way the term is still commonly used, such as by the Church of England.
Cross Hills is a village in the former Craven District of North Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Skipton and Keighley. The village is at the centre of a built-up area that includes the adjoining settlements of Glusburn, Kildwick, Eastburn and Sutton-in-Craven. Cross Hills is the newer part of the civil parish now called Glusburn and Cross Hills, historically known as Glusburn.
Ilkley Moor is part of Rombalds Moor, the moorland between Ilkley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England. The moor, which rises to 402 m (1,319 ft) above sea level, is well known as the inspiration for the Yorkshire "county anthem" On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at.
The Forest of Bowland, also known as the Bowland Fells and formerly the Chase of Bowland, is an area of gritstone fells, deep valleys and peat moorland, mostly in north-east Lancashire, England, with a small part in North Yorkshire. It is a western outlier of the Pennines.
The Coast to Coast Walk is a long-distance footpath between the west and east coasts of Northern England, nominally 190-mile (306 km) long. Devised by Alfred Wainwright, it passes through three contrasting national parks: the Lake District National Park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the North York Moors National Park. The current actual measured distance is reported as 182-mile (293 km).
A glacial erratic is a glacially deposited rock differing from the type of rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word errare, are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundreds of kilometres. Erratics can range in size from pebbles to large boulders such as Big Rock in Alberta.
Cup and ring marks or cup marks are a form of prehistoric art found in the Atlantic seaboard of Europe (Ireland, Wales, Northern England, Scotland, France, Portugal, and Spain – and in Mediterranean Europe – Italy, Azerbaijan and Greece, as well as in Scandinavia and in Switzerland.
Pendle Hill is in the east of Lancashire, England, near the towns of Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Brierfield, Clitheroe and Padiham. Its summit is 557 metres (1,827 ft) above mean sea level. It gives its name to the Borough of Pendle. It is an isolated hill in the Pennines, separated from the South Pennines to the east, the Bowland Fells to the northwest, and the West Pennine Moors to the south. It is included in a detached part of the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Blackstone Edge is a gritstone escarpment at 472 metres (1,549 ft) above sea level in the Pennine hills surrounded by moorland on the boundary between Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire in England.
Green Hill is a mountain or fell in north west England. Its summit is 628 metres (2,060 ft) above sea level. It is located above Cowan Bridge, Lancashire, near Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria, and Ingleton, North Yorkshire. Its summit is about 4 kilometres almost due west of the summit of Whernside. It forms the watershed between the River Dee and the Leck Beck: both are tributaries of the River Lune.
Cowling is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England, bordering West Yorkshire and Lancashire.
Warton Crag is a limestone hill in north west Lancashire, England. It lies to the north west of Warton village, in City of Lancaster district. At 163 metres (535 ft) it is the highest point in the Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is listed as a "HuMP" or "Hundred Metre Prominence", having a "drop" or "prominence" of 126 metres (413 ft) with its parent being Hutton Roof Crags. Two areas are Local Nature Reserves, called Warton Crag and Warton Crag Quarry. Different sections are owned by Lancashire County Council, the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside, Lancaster City Council and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Gisburn Forest is a civil parish in the Ribble Valley, in Lancashire, England. Mainly lying within the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the parish includes the larger part of the village of Tosside and the hamlet of Grunsagill to the south. Historically, the parish lay within the West Riding of Yorkshire. It had a population of 151 at the 2011 Census.
Pendle is a local government district with borough status in Lancashire, England. The council is based in Nelson, the borough's largest town. The borough also includes the towns of Barnoldswick, Brierfield, Colne and Earby along with the surrounding villages and rural areas. Part of the borough lies within the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Nine Stones Close, also known as the Grey Ladies, is a stone circle on Harthill Moor in Derbyshire in the English East Midlands. It is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of the monument is unknown.
Lund's Tower is a stone-built folly situated to the south-west of the North Yorkshire village of Sutton-in-Craven. It is also known as Sutton Pinnacle, the Ethel Tower, the Jubilee Tower or, in conjunction with the nearby Wainman's Pinnacle, the pair are referred to as the Salt and Pepper Pots.
Earl Crag is a gritstone crag and climbing area in Craven, North Yorkshire, England. It is home to Lund's Tower, Wainman's Pinnacle, and The Hitching Stone, all of which are near Cowling.
Watersheddles Reservoir is an upland artificial lake in Lancashire, England. The reservoir was opened in 1877 by the Keighley Corporation Water Works, and is now owned by Yorkshire Water. It supplies water to the Worth Valley and Keighley area and compounds several streams at the source of the River Worth.
at an elevation of 1,200 feet, and upwards of five miles from the town, stands an isolated and ponderous mass of coarse grit, called the 'Hitching Stone,'