CustomHidden
The Bawd Stone
Under the stone, through the water, out well.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Balanced gritstone slab over a small pool
- Legend from
- Folk practice, recorded 20th century
- Tone
- Curious
Sick children were pulled through the gap beneath this stone, and every year it was painted white.
Below the Roaches, near Rock Hall, stands the Bawd Stone, a great slab balanced on three smaller stones with a little pool beneath. Haden's bibliography records that small children were dragged beneath it for healing, and notes that a 2017 archaeological paper on a Bronze Age grave nearby mentions a photograph of the whitened stone taken in 1915. Local people kept up a procession to the stone into the 1940s, and its annual whitewashing is reported elsewhere. Haden wryly suggests frogs in the shady pool might have helped the cure, since frog slime has antibiotic properties.
One sourceOnly one written account of this legend has been found so far.