Thanks to Phil Morgan for this bit of interesting information. He has been looking at a book by John Ogilby who was appointed "His Majesty's Cosmographer and Geographic Printer” in 1674. In 1675 he published maps of England, and one of these maps ( p 85 of the book) shows the route from Salisbury to Camden. The route is read from the bottom to the top of the first (left-hand) strip, and then continues to the bottom and then to the top of the second strip and so on. To the north of the village of Everley (now spelt Everleigh) (SU 2069 5434) Ogilby shows 'false ftone' with a small standing stone symbol (circled red on map), alongside the old road.
On the current OS map the location is recorded as 'Falstone Pond', possibly a corruption of False Stone Pond. Phil wonders, quite reasonably, about the origin of the stone in the middle of a chalk downland landscape. If the stone was called the False Stone in antiquity would that, perhaps, indicate that it is foreign to the locality and was either deposited there by glacial action, or dumped there by disgruntled neolithic stone shifters?
Does anybody know anything about this old stone?
13 comments:
No, unable to glean anything from my reference books. Perhaps Sir Richard Colt Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, 2 volumes, 1812 - 19, has a mention of it? anyone know?
Surprisingly, not in L.V. Grinsell's "Archaeology of Wessex".
David Field's recent book on Prehistoric Wiltshire has no index.
It doesn't appear on the O.S. 1:50,000 Landranger Map 184; and it is tantalisingly just off to the east of the !:25,000 scale Explorer, "Salisbury & Stonehenge".
https://tiptiktak.com/early-iron-age-transition-in-the-vale-of-pewsey-wilts.html
Contains [somewhere!] "Falstone Pond, a natural pond"
My last entry refers to a Ph.D Paper, 2009 by Paul Tubb at the University of Bristol Department of Archaeology. Supervisor was Joshua Pollard [ of Stonehenge & Preseli & MPP links].
People may easily find Paul Tubb's email address etc via his Department at Bristol if they wish to ask him about what he may know about the possible existence of the False Stone.
Here is the complicated explanation, this is the old Marlborough road (and presumed the Roman Road from Old Sarum to Cunetio), there are milestones, milestone 9 on the Marlborough road on Andrews and Dury’s Map 1773 is missing in the gap between sections but is present on an early map that I have a copy of. It is just North of Balstone Bottom on this map and Ballstone Pond on the Andrews and Drury, this pond called falsestone pond on your 1675 map is at the junction of the Marborough Road and 2 other roads, I suggest it is a mix of the two, a milestone just to the North of this junction and the junction and pond named Ballstone, perhaps there was a marker or direction stone at the cross roads a false (mile)stone.
The Andrews and Drury map is online at the Wiltshire County Archives put the map name into Google, I can send you a copy of the other Map I have.
The Map reference SU 2069 5434 is about a mile from Everleigh were a milestone is marked on the 2 maps and the OS but Ballstone or Falsetone Pond is just under 2 miles north.
I have heard of stones now buried but in the 50s and 60s the rising of the 9 mile river used to flow around them in the winter in a valley to the West of Everleigh if interested.
Best
Peter
Interesting explanation, Peter — but in order to be called a false milestone (ie one in the wrong place) there had to be a stone there, and somebody must have put it upright so as to look like a monolith bedded in the ground.......
Exactly, a piece of sarsen similar to the Bulford stone, Cuckoo Stone,those in Pewsey Vale,or those suggested in the valley near West Everleigh, insitu at the crossroads perhaps erected but distiguished from the nearby mile stone being called false.
Yes, the stone is most likely to be sarsen, but then why would it be called “false”? Sarsens must at one time have been quite common in the landscape, and would have surprised nobody. So it is tempting to think that it was unusual and thus “false”........... Would somebody like to go and look for it?
might do thursday or weekend
Good man, Peter! Do you live somewhere nearby?
I am going to ask Nick Snashall, the National Trust Archaeologist, as I believe she has lived in that general vicinity i.e. within 10 miles of Everleigh.
Yes about 5 miles, perhaps I will meet an archaeologist.
A hot and interesting walk to False Stone, Falstone pond, Ballstone Pond or Balstone as named on various maps, on the Old Marlborough Road about 2 miles North of Everleigh in a valley where tracks branch off N.W. under Easton Hill and East to Collingborne. 3 old maps show the pond to the left, West of the OMR, the os map doesn’t show a pond, the likely area for a pond in the winter or spring now is to the right, East of the OMR in the fork with the Collingborne track, there is a depression and damp area still going across the track perhaps where the pond may flow out in winter.
The 17th C map shows what could represent a standing stone (but no pond)on the right the west side of the OMR opposite a track branching off to the East presumably the present track to Collingborne. Nothing visible in the clear areas, the rest of this side of the OMR is a dense patch of nettles approx. 3 m wide running 100 m on the left side of the OMR, in the centre of the nettles all the way along there are old straw bales some up to eye level so 1-2 metres deep, clearly visible on Google Earth, there could be a large stone in there but well covered. I spoke to 2 brothers working a combine and tractor who had worked this area for 45 years they had not seen a stone, although if the tradition of dumping bales goes back it could have been covered that long.
I have just realised while writing this that the 17th C map shows what could be the standing stone just north of milestone 8, the milestones are marked in the correct places and distances on this map along the OMR 5,6,7,8 and 9. Milestone 8 is a few hundred metres from the pond area and junctions, still on the top of the bank to the right of the OMR, N.E. up out of the valley. Perhaps there is a stone there near the milestone I didn’t look perhaps need to go back.
It seems reasonable to think there may have been a stone by the OMR, there are reports of stones in the next valley to the west, north of Lower Everleigh running in the valley bottom up to Everleigh Barrows and Pewsey Down Barrows. These were called “sleeping pigs” by the locals of Lower Everleigh, there were quite a few, may have been looked at by a University field team in the 70s or 80s and some removed by the Army (being in the way of tanks) and put in a large hole somewhere nearby.
That about covers it.
Let me know if you want to see the photos pdpeterdunn@gmail.com
Josh Pollard says he knows nothing about this possible stone, and suggests someone look at the Wiltshire Historic Environment Record based at Chippenham (Wiltshire History Centre). I haven't done. Perhaps, Peter, you'd like to.
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