Mousehole plague stone
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Mousehole plague stone by Richard Law as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Mousehole plague stone
Image: © Richard Law Taken: 27 Dec 2015
The bowl of this stone would have been used when this area was contaminated by the Bubonic Plague (which was around 1578) to hold a small pool of vinegar, into which the afflicted residents placed money in exchange for foods, provided by unaffected neighbours. Quite how effective the vinegar was as a disinfectant is not recorded, but there are many examples of 'vinegar stones' around the country, including one at Zennor Image
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
50.082751
Longitude
-5.539697