Googleby Stone

Stones never used to float my boat as a youngan! Gargantuan lumps of grey, edging fields, or dog-eared pink pokey plinths in remote places; I just couldn't see the attraction. There felt like no story to tell or human link, nothing to tether me to the cold, rough edges.

But over the years, the lure of a long stone and the magic of a monolith have somehow pulled me in, stepping over the stones to the other side!

After exploring sites like The Duddo Five Stones (in the late 1800s, you could have asked for your money back as there were only four!) and Long Meg and her Daughters, in Cumbria, I've become strangely enamoured of limestone and slate and granite and gneiss!

You can see then, why, on spotting this huge molar of a stone in Shap, I was enticed to slip through the smoot in this drystone wall, and wander across the field to find The Googleby Stone.

On a hot summer's day last July, we'd seen no one for hours, but suddenly ahead of us, we were faced off by an approaching walker, also keen for a glimpse of The Googleby! We measured our paces like the preparations for pistols at dawn, but he got there first over the fields.

We slowed our pace to politely allow him his megalithic once over, whilst we cooed over the cows and tried to identify the wild blooms and butterflies in the meadow, closely adhering to our own fashioned stone etiquette.

He studied each surface, from every angle, and made the next ten minutes awkward, knowing we were clearly there to goggle The Googleby. You can't form an orderly queue at a solitary standing stone, so we had to wait up, willing him away. And with a flick of his Canon camera cap, he was gone, into the long grass.

On closer approach, the Googleby Stone is a whopper! Bigger than most stoney standers at around 10ft tall!

It was pocked and pitted and did resemble the back tooth of a Brachiosaurus. It looked like it had been shaved away at the bottom and was thinner in girth than the top, which spread out. It's supposed to house a cup and ring mark on the North face, but we couldn't determine its location.

It's easy to see where the name standing stone comes from. It's clearly stood for a long time. It's said to date back to the Bronze Age, around 3000 to 2000 BC, when the upland forests were being cleared for cattle grazing, and people made cultural connections with the Beaker People from Southern Scotland.

This is a significant stone in the 'Shap Avenue', a distinctive megalithic site of two rows of large granite stones which went on for over a mile. It also held a stone circle known as 'Carl Lofts', most of which is now destroyed and made way for the advent of the railways in Cumbria around 1844.

It was once pinkish in hue. It's made from Shap Granite, though now more of a grubby grey and mottled with moss and lichen. It's impressive for a lone stone in the middle of a field.

The renowned archaeologist, author and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Dr Aubrey Burl described the Googleby Stone as:

A likeness not seen by us!

In 1965, the Googleby, or Guggleby Stone, keeled over but was re-erected by Lancaster University's Archaeological Department, who held a full scale excavation beforehand, which came to no avail as to its actual dating. It did reveal, however, that this was a big boy of a boulder weighed in at twelve tonnes. It was manoeuvred back into position and then back filled with packing and wedging stones, and then cast in place with an unattractive coat of concrete!

It also goes by the name of the Goggleby Stone, but Googleby sounds better to me, and draws it out like it deserves, being seen from every angle, from far off and over many fields. It must have looked remarkable when there were more, lined up in parallel rows between Kempe How and ending just north of High Buildings Farm.

There are other stones dotted around, which were part of the same course. Shap Local History Society lists 1 stone circle, 7 burial mounds and one settlement around the area as well as the stones themselves, of which there are thought to be 13 listed.

The Googleby Stone is an erratic which would have been carried to this spot during the last Ice Age and dolloped in this field to see out its days, discovered and discussed by people like me! Prehistoric people would have used this naturally placed boulder to form part of a Megalithic monument and probably placed the remaining stones in the vicinity of this stone.

It's on the Coast to Coast path, so if you fancy a wander and a wonder at something Megalithic, make your way to Shap. It's a goodun and a biggun.