Stockton Stone

Image: © NickGarrod Taken: 3 Jan 2007

Stockton Stone stands on a grassy slope between a lay-by (the old road) and the modern road, on the west side of the main A146 from Beccles to Norwich, at TM387947. This is an oblong sandstone glacial erratic weighing several tons, 2½ feet x 2 feet x 2 feet high, pitted and riven in several places, but apparently not worked, with the sharp top axis aligned along the road. It had a curse upon it that anyone who moves it will suffer dreadful misfortune or death before a year has passed. But in fact it WAS moved in the 1930s during work to straighten the road and, so I gather, one of the workmen involved actually collapsed and died.1 Photographs in the ' Lowestoft Journal' in February and July 1935 show the stone (6 feet long in total) being lifted under the supervision of Benjamin Edge of Stockton Old Hall, who owned the land, and Major S. E. Glendenning of the Norfolk Archaeological Society. Glendenning himself said that the stone had been moved diagonally eastwards about 14 feet, and the disturbance was "regarded locally with some misgiving".2 Before the existence of the Geld Stone was more widely known, some had suggested that the Danegeld was paid here (see Geldeston). According to an informant, the stone was "certainly some form of boundary mark, and maintained by the church; there is an entry in the Stockton church book for 'stulpes', i.e. posts, for Stockton Stone, in 1632".3 The Town Book also records, in 1645, the payment of a small sum for "putting stulps to Stockton Stone".4 The author W.A.Dutt considered it to have been a track marker, set up at the point where an ancient trackway crossed the present road. A track through Stone Covert is still evident, but there's nothing to suggest that it's ancient. stocktonstone.jpg (78255 bytes) Sources: 1. Keith Payne of Stockton, in the 'Waveney Clarion', Vol.1, No.6, p.3. 2. S. E. Glendenning, in the 'Eastern Daily Press', Nov. 4th 1947. 3. Information from Miss Elisabeth Crowfoot of Geldeston. 4. White's 'History, Gazetteer & Directory of Norfolk', 1883.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0