Pam Cottrell (Member: 149)
The Hitching Stone - Keighley Moor
I’ve pored over every nook and cranny of Earl’s crag. Memorised the dry pathway through the bog on Keighley moor that leads me to you
There are three stone watchmen on the moor behind my parent's house. Two of them are folly’s constructed by man, the other is a gritstone boulder who rode in on a glacier. 'The Hitching stone' who guards the crossroads between age-old borders.
I have drawn a line between them over and over, checking all the pathways I have checked before. Choose a patch of land and learn about your common ground.
When we encounter a new landscape we look out, but this is not exotic or unknown, I’ve pored over every nook and cranny of Earl’s crag. Memorised the dry pathway through the bog on Keighley moor that leads me to you.
Myself, the dog, we share the moor with the Hitching stone, we sit and watch the patch of land he inhabits. I wish I could ask the Hitching stone about the ancient councils, local Parliaments, fayres and weddings he has presided over.
Instead I sit in the hole in your side they call the druids chair and listen to the grouse going off like wind-up toys, croaking and chattering.
‘If you weren’t on the boggy side of the moorland, I would visit you more often’
Some general information about the Hitching Stone:
-It sits on the border between North and West Yorkshire and Yorkshire and Lancashire
-It's position between land borders means that it has been used as a local parliament site since the Viking era
-Weddings (hence Hitching) Fayre's, Parliaments, Markets and other gatherings have all been held at the Stone as a point of focus in the land. The last recorded Fayre was held there in 1870.
-It is the largest boulder in Yorkshire, a glacial erratic likely carried over from the nearby Earl's Crag
-It has logged climbing routes for Bouldering on it
-There is a pool in the top that never dries out and a hole in the side you can crawl into called 'The Druid's chair'
-The stone is covered in interesting graffiti from throughout the ages
-There are also two stone Beacons/Follys nearby, 'Lund's Tower' and 'Wainman's Pinnacle'. They make a nice trio.
