2015

A take-on stone is a stone instructing a coachman to add an extra horse or horses to a conveyance in order to help pull the coach up a steep hill.  A take-off stone, conversely, is an instruction to unhitch the horse(s).  Such stones are few.

There are supposed to be three such stones surviving on Mortimer Road, on the moors above Bradfield, near Sheffield.  This road leads from Penistone to Grindleford in the Derbyshire Peak District.  Turnpiked from earlier packhorse routes, it was a financial failure, and its fascinating story is told in a book by Howard Smith (1993).  Its route is also traced on the Stocksbridge and District History Society website.

The take-off stone illustrated here is at the top of the hill just north of the Strines Inn, near the end of the West Riding stretch of the road.

Another such stone can be seen on a bridge near Haworth, with the words “Hang on”.  See the picture from Geograph here.

These stones are also known, at least to the Milestone Society, as “horse stones”, and the horses themselves are also called “cock horses”.  This term has applied to the children’s toy from as long ago as Tudor times, while the Banbury Cross nursery rhyme dates to the 18th century.  Its use in our context, however, is more recent: the OED has its earliest usage as comparatively recently as the late 19th century.  A quotation from The Field  of 25th July 1891 reads “With no further use for the cock horse, we cast him off at the top of the hill”.

RWH / Oct 2015, rev June 2024

The concept of sanctuary, as a place where fugitives can be immune from arrest, dates back to the Bible (cf Numbers, 35), and was recognised in English law until abolished by James I in the 17th century.  It was a way to protect people from the vagaries of mob justice.  All churches could offer sanctuary within the actual church building, but there were over 20 churches in mediaeval England (including Beverley, Ripon and York in Yorkshire) which were able to provide a wider area of sanctuary.

In Beverley sanctuary began approximately two miles from the Minster.  If a pursuer caught his quarry within this area he had to pay a fine to the church authorities.  To denote the area sanctuary stones were set up on four of the main approaches to the town – these were tall columns with richly carved crosses – and there were other crosses nearer the Minster at points where fines increased.

Three of the outermost sanctuary crosses survive, though much defaced and without their tops, probably occasioned by post-Reformation zeal.

One is on the A164 road from Hessle and the Humber, just south of its intersection with the A1079.  This would have been the main route from Lincoln and the south.  On a square base, the column is 21/2 feet tall and 18 inches thick.  It can be clearly seen, having been rescued from vegetation during construction of the by-pass.

Moving clockwise the next is at Walkington on the route from Howden and the south-west.  Similar in size to the Hessle cross, this (illustrated) is on the left just past the traffic-lights coming from Beverley.

The third surviving stone is at Killingwoldgraves near Bishop Burton on the road to York (the A1174) just before the by-pass (again coming from Beverley).  Better preserved and taller than the other two, with some decorative features surviving, this is slightly away from the road and on a higher vantage point, perhaps to make it more visible (unless, of course, it has been moved).

The fourth, missing stone was on the road to Driffield and the north, the A164.  It is possible that it was lost during the construction of the now disused railway line to Market Weighton.

One sanctuary stone survives of the eight that originally surrounded St Wilfrid’s Monastery (founded 672 AD) in Ripon: Sharow Cross, now cared for by the National Trust, probably dates from the 13th century.  On Dishforth Road at Sharow, just off the A61 on the other side of the River Ure from Ripon itself, it is at SE 3235 7198.  Ripon Cathedral now stands where the original monastery was established.

Sources: Martyn Kirby: Sanctuary: Beverley – a town of refuge (updated ed, 200?); for Sharow Cross: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1149835

RWH / rev August 2020

Holme Moss conjures up different images for people: for some it’s an iconic bike ride climb; for others a treacherous moorland road where to venture in the winter is to court danger. But for the residents of the Graveship of Holme the Moss (and ‘moss’ is a local term for a peat-bog) was their source of fuel, and peat was also used for other purposes, eg roofing.

The Graveship of Holme was (in fact still is) a collection of townships around Holmfirth in West Yorkshire. Its origins have nothing to do with burying the dead, but denoted an area governed by a grave or grieve, a mainly northern term for a sheriff. The common lands (in effect the moorlands or mosses) to these townships were divided between the townships, and a glance at older large-scale Ordnance Survey maps reveals a vast number of detached portions of townships all over the moors. These were the sources of peat or turbary (from ‘turf’) for the local population.

“Father Conmee reflected on the providence of the Creator who had made turf to be in bogs where men might dig it out and take it to town and hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor people”.  So wrote James Joyce in Ulysses, but turbary or peat-digging rights were jealously guarded. And, because of the featureless nature of the landscapes of these mosses – cf the fruitless searches for the Moors Murderers’ victims – disputes were common. Hence we sometimes find turbary boundary stones.

We have looked, so far without success, for turbary stones around Holme Moss; nor are there any yet located in peat-digging areas of Marsden Moor, just north of Holme Moss – again the proliferation of Moss names indicates the peaty areas. Which is why an unidentified stone on the first Austerlands turnpike above Marsden, which we wanted to be a turbary stone, almost certainly isn’t one.

Further north again, however, there are some stones asserting turbary rights (or ‘commons’) in the township of Langfield in the ancient parish of Halifax. This covers a wide, sparsely-populated area south of Todmorden on the West Riding county boundary. There is no standard pattern to the stones, but all have ‘L’ for Langfield, followed by a number. The one illustrated here says “This common doth belong to L…”, but much on the stones is illegible.

Another area where turbary stones are found is further north again, in the Dales, where turbary rights were often in dispute, especially in the 17th century. They have been recorded in the parishes of Austwick, Dent, Stainforth and Thornton-in-Lonsdale, with the largest number in Lawkland. Many, however, have no visible text. The Yorkshire Dales National Park website has further information, a database on a spreadsheet, and a picture gallery.

For more information on peat and peat cutting see a book of the same title by Ian Rotherham (Shire Publications, 2009).  This book is a celebration of a cultural history that extended from the Iron Age to the twentieth century when peat was the main fuel that warmed houses all over the British Isles, and the mark of the peat cutter is written deep in the landscape.  It tells the story of the use of peat for fuel in the British Isles, and the people who cut it. It also examines the methods of cutting, the tools that were used, and the organization of cutting. It chronicles the beginning of commercial extraction and the exhaustion of this precious resource.

Sources: Talk given to the Milestone Society Northern Spring Meeting, 2015, by David Garside; Yorkshire Dales National Park website article (archived); Langfield Common stone illustration © Copyright Humphrey Bolton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

RWH / rev Sept 2020