Legend
Robin Hood's Stone
Grooves cut by arrows, or by rain?
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- A tall grooved red stone behind railings
- Legend from
- Allerton tradition
- Best time
- Any
- Tone
- Wry
Archers once came here, it is said, to whet their arrowheads on the old red stone.
Robin Hood's Stone is a red sandstone standing stone about two metres high, on the corner of Archerfield Road and Booker Avenue in Allerton. It was moved about 60 metres in 1928 because of new housing. Local legend says medieval archers sharpened their arrowheads on it, wearing the deep vertical grooves into its face. Wikipedia notes that the Liverpool Echo found no evidence for this, and that the stone has no real connection with Robin Hood. George Nash, writing for the Merseyside Archaeological Society, describes the grooves as natural. Below the present ground level are cupmarks and a carved cup-and-ring, linking the stone to the prehistoric Calderstones nearby.