The Hood Hill Altar Stone – Sutton Bank

  The ‘Altar’ was a large block of stone located on top of Hood Hill near Sutton Bank, 5 miles to the east of Thirsk.

  Hood Hill is a prominent outlying hill separated off from the main Hambleton Hills escarpment. Up until the 1950’s a large block of stone (known locally as The Altar) sat on the ridge of the hill, where it was described as being rectangular in shape, approximately 15 feet in length, 10ft wide, and 6 feet high. The Altar Stone is also said to have had a foot shaped cavity on top of the rock, and so it is perhaps no surprise that it was a local landmark, and also featured in the areas folklore.

  Unfortunately the Altar rock was destroyed in 1954 when an RAF jet aircraft crashed into the hill during a training flight. The circumstances of the crash were something of a mystery at the time, as the jet seems to have nose dived vertically into the Altar Stone, totally destroying both the aircraft and the rock. The Altar Stone appears to have exploded into hundreds of small pieces, and today there is only a crater where it once sat, with a small piece of the rock in the bottom of the hole (SE 50376 81258).

T’ Hob o’ Tarn Hole – Bilsdale

 Tarn Hole is a large wooded valley on the edge of East Bilsdale Moor, two miles to the south-east of Chop Gate on the North York Moors.

  (As pointed out in the Buckingham Stone post last year, Tarn Hole is privately owned land, and not part of the open access area just to the north.)

  At one time this valley was home to the Tarn Hole Hob, although next to nothing is known about this secretive little fella. A Hob is a supernatural dwarf-like being, recorded in folklore across the North York Moors and other parts of Northern England. (See the Hob-Thrush of Over Silton). Unfortunately, all we have is the Tarn Hole Hob name, which appeared in a list made in the early 1800’s by George Calvert of Pickering (Home, 1905). In this list he noted all the Hobs he had heard about on the North York Moors. At one time there would have been a local story to explain the Hob’s connection with Tarn Hole, but it was not written down, and so the folklore has been lost.

Fairy Bank – Fell Beck

  The Fairy Bank is a section of the Fell Beck stream valley, located two miles to east of Pateley Bridge in the Yorkshire Dales.

  Like the Fairy Table at Kilburn, the only record of this fairy site appears to be on the first edition OS map (1854). The name was noted down several years ago, but for some reason it remained on the ‘to do’ list, even after visiting the nearby sites at Brimham Rocks and Boggart Crag. The Fairy Bank came back into focus after visiting the Fairy Table outcrop at Kilburn (on the edge of North York Moors) which led to an interesting quote from a German website, translated as ……

“Where mighty masses of stone stare down,
there they have their ‘fairy houses’.
There they eat at the ‘fairy table’.”

  This quote seemed to encapsulate a folklore pattern which had been noted at several Faerie and Hob sites in this region. These usually feature prominent rock outcrops, crags, or cliffs, perhaps with a cave, and a nearby source of water. With this is mind it was decided to visit the Fairy Bank site as a sort of ‘test case’. Having never seen the location, and with no details available, it would be interesting to see if the Fairy Bank would fit the pattern.

The Fairy Table – Kilburn

“Where mighty masses of stone stare down,
there they have their Fairy houses.
There they eat at the Fairy Table.”

 The Fairy Table is a rock outcrop located on a wooded hillside, one mile to the north-east of Kilburn village on the edge of the North York Moors.

 The outcrop is marked on the first edition OS map (1856), so it had some local significance before this date, but there appears to be nothing on record to explain the interesting name.

 There is another rock outcrop called the ‘Fairies Table’ located on the wooded slopes leading down to the river Lyne, to the north of Carlisle in Cumbria. This is described as a large flat topped rock on which the fairies would dance on moonlit nights. The fairies were also said to live in a cave nearby.

The Devil’s Parlour Cave – Roulston Scar

 The Devil’s Parlour cave is located in the cliff face at Roulston Scar, half a mile to the south of Sutton Bank, and 5 miles east of Thirsk.

 The cave takes the form of a tall but narrow fissure in the rock face at the base of the cliffs. The passage is not much more than two feet wide, and extends about 30ft into the rock before it becomes impassable. There appears to be nothing particularly ‘devilish’ about this cave, so how did it come by its curious name? The answer would seem to lie in a local story which connects Roulston Scar with the Devil, and the prominent ridge of Hood Hill, half a mile to the west.