An explanation for the 'mysterious scooped stone' on Belstone Tor?
In The Book of Belstone (Chris and Marion Walpole, 2002), I was intrigued to read this**:
(Quote):
"Origins of the name:
"2200BC; the Phoenicians have founded Cadiz and a band of adventurers journey on into the Atlantic to make a landfall far to the north. They seek the high ground and give thanks for safe passage to He Who Rides on the Clouds, the god of life and fertility, Baal. **A stone from the clitter, shaped in the form of a sacred calf, is pulled to the summit and worshipped.** A settlement is made below the hill, called Baal’s ton… This romantic explanation of the village’s name was proposed by the Victorians.
More prosaic are 20th century interpretations. Domesday records Bellestan or Bellestam, from belle bell and stan stone, possibly the logan stone identified by Rev Baring-Gould that rolled like a ship in a gale, and boys were wont to make it crack nuts for them; it has been thrown down and broken up by quarrymen.”
Other names have been recorded:
“Belstana (1166), Ballestan (1238), Belestan (1259), Bylston (1524) and Belson (1569), but the usual spelling between the 16th and early 19th centuries was simply Belston.”
[Unquote]
Another explanation for it being more recent follows**:
(Quoting again):
"Quarrying:
“Stone was quarried from under Belstone Tors, a scene described by John Trevena in ‘A Pixy in Petticoats’ (1906); ..the sides of these tors were covered with white scars made by sundered granite and some of Eastaway’s men, as small as dolls, were working there getting the last load of granite for the day, their crowbars ringing upon the blocks and striking wild mountain music. There are many places where partly-worked granite, with the tell-tale remains of the splitting holes on one edge, can still be seen. Good examples of a trough and a quarter part of a cider press lie respectively about 350m south and 100m south-west of Resugga house. **The most substantial quarry lies at the north end of the Belstone Tor clitter, almost on the boundary between the granite and the Culm Measures shale, about 250m south-east of the Nine Maidens stone circle. ** Here are visible a row of 11 splitting holes in the back-wall granite, while two nearby stones have the iron tare wedges still embedded in them. This quarry was known as ‘Sand Pit’ to William Reddaway whose men brought the granite back to Belstone on the track around Watchet Hill."
“North of the granite mass is a metamorphic aureole of shales and cherts from the Carboniferous Age, with dolerite intrusions. The granite boundary runs roughly east-west from the Taw below Moorlands House across the southern side of Watchet Hill past the Nine Maidens and down to the East Okement at Slipper Stones.”
[Unquote]
Whilst the quarry wasn't obvious at all on the route I took to the summit where this mysterious stone seemed to have been carefully placed, it does make me wonder whether these industrious quarrymen, having heard the Victorian legend about the Phoenicians 'sacred calf stone', decided to have a little input themselves. Realising that there was a natural 'seat' at the top of Tors End (see map on Nine Stones Belstone site page), perhaps they shaped the stone and wedged it into the upright of the granite stack, thus framing the view to Yes Tor when sitting on the seat?
[See photos posted previously]
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road