Mr. Rasbotham, a Lancashire magistrate in the last century, describes the ancient monuments, as they existed in 1776:
“About three miles from the Wilder Lads, upon piece of rock, is a huge, hard, gray moor-stone, fourteen feet long, five feet thick, and nine feet broad at the top, which is five feet eight inches from the ground. A rude mark of a cross, of about seven inches by six, has, at a remote period of time, been cut upon the top. This is called by some the Hanging Stone, and by others the Giant’s Stone, from a tradition of the common people that it was thrown by a giant from Winter Hill, on the opposite range of mountains. Antiquaries consider it to be a Druidical remain.”
The Hanging Stone is easily identifiable by a deeply carved graffiti shown in the photo. On visiting this causes mixed feelings. A similar text on a nearby rock seems to read: “PR 88 ALSO 94”. It is disturbing to note 1994 is around the time the Pikestones were unforgiveably defaced with a spiral carving of a similar depth and thickness.
Today the Hanging Stone is much changed since Rasbotham’s description and it is difficult to interpret the original structure among the large fragments of rock remaining. Several large rocks align as though they where once a single huge stone. There is no sign of Rasbotham’s carved cross, only the intriguing but commonplace grooves and markings that are characteristic of the local gritstone.
It seems erosion has been quite severe over the two centuries since Rasbotham’s visit, which is rather dissapointing after the site appears to have been in one piece from ancient times to at least the 19th Century.
The Hanging Stone, is on the line of a current boundary that is perhaps ancient as many large natural rocks or features have been used over the centuries. Strangely, a reinforced concrete post is slotted into the shattered widest part of the stone. Contemporary markers are found nearby as shown in the left photo.
A patch of post-industrial, peat moorland to the north of Bolton and confusingly, some distance from the area of Bolton we call Turton today.
