Marked as 'Bargain Stone' on 1857 map of Scarborough
The Great Blue Stone, are you going to Jabbler's Fayre?
There was an ancient standing stone on the approach to the Castle near to the grounds of St Mary's Church up until the mid 1800's. Marked on different maps and mentioned in different books as 'The Great Blue Stone', the 'Bargain Stone', the 'Ancient Market Stone' and 'The Old Blue Stone', it sat in the location near to the car park between The Phoenix Court Hotel and The Norbreck Hotel. From The Great Blue Stone, along the ridge at the top of Castle Road, you could have an elevated view of the surrounding landscape.
The antiquarian Thomas Hinderwell describes the stone and mentions that it was used for standing on and for giving declarations, making speeches and striking bargains during the Old Scarborough Market, he says "The Old Market place was situated to the north at St Mary's and The Great Blue Stone which was still to be seen in the fence there is said to have continued for many ages and to have been the place where public bargains where ratified and discharged as being the custom in those days."
It is anyone's guess as to when and how the stone was put into its original position. Indeed the stone could be easily mislabelled as a 'glacial erratic' which is a random stone left by a glacier, should it not be for its very considered location. Being in an elevated viewing position before the building of the terraces lining Castle Rd, from this very specific location the movement of the sun and moon is measured out in the features on the horizon line, the castle headland and the ancient details in the landscape as I will describe below.
During the development of Castle Road in the mid 1800's The Great Blue Stone was moved. It was moved into the care of newly established Scarborough museum and it sat in the museum gardens and then eventually moved again to sit outside of the Rotunda Museum. The stone is now in the museum stores and it has since been polished at one end and carved with the words 'Ancient Market Stone' along with a mention of the antiquarian Thomas Hinderwell who described it in his book 'The history and antiquities of Scarborough.' (1)
In 1253 Henry III's charter decreed at Scarborough the first opening of the great 'Jabbler's Fayre'. To be located in the grounds of High Tollergate near St Mary's and to be held annually as a harvest festival, at the time of the festival custom of 'Lammas' (LoafMass) (2.) on the 12th of August. Jabbler's Fayre attracted huge crowds and merchants, jesters and musicians from all over Europe (3.). Labourers and farm hands would be offering their services, grazing and tenure rights of pasture were settled and tolls and taxes levied and collected. It is suggested that The Great Blue Stone sat on the high ground of the fayre and was used for striking bargains and making speeches.
The sunrise on Jabblers Fayre is over the Queens Tower on the Castle Wall, shining above the Old Newborough Bar and down Westborough, as seen from the straight approach road to the entrance to the town. This is worth mentioning because this sunrise could have been the traditional signal indicating the beginning of the fayre. Many cities, towns and villages that pre-date medieval times have the same characteristic.
Was the annual Jabbler's Fayre the fair mentioned in the traditional British ballad 'Scarborough Fair', the song made famous by Martin Carthy and later by Simon and Garfunkel? Often places with standing stones, barrows and earthworks become locations of great meetings and events, which in turn inspire great songs and stories. (4.)
Sacred sites across the world are founded on locations that are geologically interesting. The area around the Castle originally suffered a major geological fault which dropped the headland by 60 meters. The applied pressure beneath the surface maybe the reason for the presence of so many wells on the headland as the water stored deep underground is forced towards the surface. (These wells are, 'Our Lady's Well' by the Roman Signal Station, 'The Ballium Well' by the Castle Keep, 'Thomas Hinderwell's Fountain' that was outside of the graveyard by Anne Brontes grave and St Mary's Church itself is reputed to be built over and ancient well). There certainly seems to be an association between the stresses and strains in the earth’s crust and the pressure on bodies of water or on underlying geology to produce a feeling of levity and happiness in a persons temperament and disposition.
"Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Without a seam or needlework,
And she shall be a true love of mine.
Tell him to wash it in yonder dry well,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Where water ne'er sprang nor drop of rain fell,
And he shall be a true love of mine."
(Scarborough Fayre-Traditonal Song)
Queue music 'Sailing By' by Roland Binge....
"Hello and welcome to 'The Great Blue Stone Shipping Forecast'. The sunrise and sunset times and their locations on the old calendar days as seen from The Great Blue Stone are as follows..."
"HeadlandRising on Mayday and the opening day of Jabblers Fayre, are the first time and last time in the year that the sun rises in the north bay, appearing in the left hand corner of the headland for the first time."
"Coomboots falling, on Mayday and the opening day of Jabblers Fayre the sun sets along the row of tumuli along Suffield Moor from the tumulus above Coomboots to Swarth Howe."
"Coffee pot rock Rising, on the Summer Solstice the sun rises left of the headland over the Coffee Pot Rock."
Nettlehead Falling, the sun sets at the point on the horizon marked by the Barrow at Thirley Beck Farm. Keasbeck Hill and Nettlehead make a curious shape on the horizon where the sunset reaches its furthest point north before rolling back westward."
Flamborough Rising, on the Winter Solstice the sun rises spectacularly off Flamborough Head."
"Stepney Falling, the sun sets at 'The Camp' an interesting earthwork at the top of Stepney Rd. Which is aligned to a tumulus and Albermarle Baptist church, the building built over the Damyot spring head. The Damyot was the stream that Scarborough Old Town was originally built around."
This was The Great Blue Stone Shipping forecast wishing you a quiet night. (5.)
DavWhiteArt.com
Afternote:
Many 'menhirs' and standing stones across Europe have been 'Christianised' where crosses or parts of the bible have been carved into the stone. This is the only standing stone I know of where the stone has been 'Antiquarian-ised', where the author's name and book title has been carved into the base.
Appendices and Photos
(1.)Thomas Hinderwell was the renowned antiquarian who wrote 'The History and Antiquities of Scarborough and the Vicinity' published in 1798. The book was described as "one of the most accurate and interesting works relating to this or any other part of England." His name appears on The Great Blue Stone itself, a commemorative decision made after his death, as I'm guessing, because that he seems to be the primary source of information about it.
A little further up the road there is a drinking fountain dedicated to him called the Thomas Hinderwell Fountain. Curiously enough he is buried in St Mary's Graveyard close to the site of The Great Blue Stone and The Thomas Hinderwell Fountain, Scarborough's original features from great antiquity.
(2.) As an old quarter day, Lammas was full of omens, and seen as the antithesis of May Day. The sun was in the same ominous location on the horizon as it was on May Day and folklore decreed that 'misfortune could be reversed' at Lammas.
(3.) Scarborough had weekly markets on different days, held in different locations around the town and they attracted visitors from as far away as Ghent, Ypres and the Baltic, but the Great Jabbler's Fayre was one of the big events of the year. Hinderwell documents,
"Henry III by Charter dated 22nd of January 1255...and that the burgesses and their heirs, for ever, may have one fair in the borough every year to contiunue from the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary until the Feast of St. Michael (12th of August -29th September). It anciently attracted a great concourse of strangers, minstrels,jugglers, and all the ancient scenes of merriment abounded. A grand procession,horses and riders adorned with flowers and hats, a common cryer make proclamation of the mart and welcome strangers to the town. Such was the ancient custom of 'Jabler's Day' , the inhabitants being formerly summoned to pay their 'gablage'. (This customer lasted until around 1788) - Hinderwell, The History and Antiquities of Scarborough and its Vicinity, 1798
(4.) "A universal theme of both folk tale and ballad is that of impossible tasks. In this ballad, the form it takes is that of the courtship, with on flirtatious lover setting a series of tasks and his companion meeting the challenge by setting an equally difficult series. In early forms of the ballad, an elfin knight posed the tasks, to be answered by a maiden who remains free by devising tasks of no less difficulty which must be answered first. It is well known in England" -Ewan Mcoll 1956
"Derived by MacColl from Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs, this is a fragment of an extremely ancient ballad common in all areas of Britain. In the original song a girl hears the far-off blast of the elfin knight's horn and wishes he were in her bedroom. He straightaway appears, but will not consent to be her lover until she answers a series of riddles. This trait of test-by-riddle is a heritage from remote antiquity. The survival of this ancient piece of folklore is assured by the fact that all the couplets in this song contain gentle, but evocative erotic symbols."- Shirley Collins 1960.
"Folklorists and students of plant mythology are well aware that certain herbs were held to have magical significance—that they were used by sorcerers in their spells and conversely as counter-spells by those that wished to outwit them. The herbs mentioned in the refrain of Scarborough Fair (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) are all known to have been closely associated with death and also as charms against the evil eye. The characters in the Elfin Knight (of which Scarborough Fair is a version) are a demon and a maid. The demon sets impossible tasks and on the maid's replies depends whether she will fall into his clutches or not. Child believed that elf to be an interloper from another ballad (Lady Isobel and the Elf Knight) and that he should rightly be mortal, but as Ann Gilchrist points out “why the use of the herb refrain except as an indication of something more than mortal combat?” Sir Walter Scott in his notes to Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border recalled hearing a ballad of “a fiend …paying his addresses to a maid but being disconcerted by the holy herbs she wore in her bosom” and Lucy Broadwood goes as far as to suggest that the refrain might be the survival of an incantation against such a suitor." -Martin Carthy
In our modern times the premise of the song 'Scarborough Fair' seems to echo the experience of benefit claimants, unfairly set impossible tasks and errands, or to complete paperwork which is overly bureaucratic that ultimately results in sanctions or the loss of a basic income.
The Trussell Trust's 2013 report on food banks describes a spike in numbers nationwide when more than one million sanctions were applied following changes to the administration of Jobseeker's Allowance. Food bank use rose by 19%.
Scarborough town’s food bank is at The Rainbow Centre, which is in the building built along the site of the 'Auborough Bar' -one of the gates to the old town a few hundred yards from The Great Blue Stone. If the song 'Scarborough Fair' is set at 'Jabbler's Fayre' how poignant that it still rings with its truths today!
(5.) From its former location on Castle Rd, the Great Blue Stone’s elevated position allows the horizon line to become filled with interesting details. The horizon north-west makes a curious shallow bowl shape from the features of Suffield Moor, Burn Howe Moor, Nettlehead and Standingstones Rigg. They make an interesting measuring tool using the horizon line, and on different summer nights the sun moves from one side of the bowl to the other, setting at different points northwards as it reaches the summer solstice.
It sets at Swarth Howe and along Burn Howe Moor. 'Swarth' might have come from 'Svarti' meaning 'black' (charred) and 'Burn' Howe on Burn Moor may denote ritual fires set during this time of the year.
The Great Blue Stone is now in the courtyard of The Phoenix Court Hotel. The Phoenix is a sunbird associated with fire and rebirth.
The sun continues to set along this horizon from May Day through Rogantide and Whit Week. Many parish boundary lines cross this part of the landscape. Rogantide is the traditional time of the year for ‘Beating the Bounds’ a ritual of walking the boundary lines. Sunset at Whitweek is over the 'Whitway', the old name for the A165, the road from Scarborough to Whitby, crossing some of the old boundary lines.
The furthest point it reaches is the Barrow at Thirley Beck Farm on the summer solstice. As the stone is a large impressive piece of basalt rock, quarried locally as whinstone or bluestone, the nearest source being The Cleveland Dyke, a volcanic fissure on the North York Moore formed 60 million years ago. The last section of The Cleveland Dyke ' Winstone ridge' and perhaps the origin of the old blue stone is where the sun has been setting during most of the summer.
There are many standing stones on the North York Moors that are made from basalt from The Cleveland Dyke and many scared sites that have been placed on the geological fault line that runs dons the coast from Scarborough.
There was an ancient standing stone on the approach to the Castle near to the grounds of St Mary's Church up until the mid 1800's. Marked on different maps and mentioned in different books as 'The Great Blue Stone', the 'Bargain Stone', the 'Ancient Market Stone' and 'The Old Blue Stone', it sat in the location near to the car park between The Phoenix Court Hotel and The Norbreck Hotel. From The Great Blue Stone, along the ridge at the top of Castle Road, you could have an elevated view of the surrounding landscape.
The antiquarian Thomas Hinderwell describes the stone and mentions that it was used for standing on and for giving declarations, making speeches and striking bargains during the Old Scarborough Market, he says "The Old Market place was situated to the north at St Mary's and The Great Blue Stone which was still to be seen in the fence there is said to have continued for many ages and to have been the place where public bargains where ratified and discharged as being the custom in those days."
It is anyone's guess as to when and how the stone was put into its original position. Indeed the stone could be easily mislabelled as a 'glacial erratic' which is a random stone left by a glacier, should it not be for its very considered location. Being in an elevated viewing position before the building of the terraces lining Castle Rd, from this very specific location the movement of the sun and moon is measured out in the features on the horizon line, the castle headland and the ancient details in the landscape as I will describe below.
During the development of Castle Road in the mid 1800's The Great Blue Stone was moved. It was moved into the care of newly established Scarborough museum and it sat in the museum gardens and then eventually moved again to sit outside of the Rotunda Museum. The stone is now in the museum stores and it has since been polished at one end and carved with the words 'Ancient Market Stone' along with a mention of the antiquarian Thomas Hinderwell who described it in his book 'The history and antiquities of Scarborough.' (1)
In 1253 Henry III's charter decreed at Scarborough the first opening of the great 'Jabbler's Fayre'. To be located in the grounds of High Tollergate near St Mary's and to be held annually as a harvest festival, at the time of the festival custom of 'Lammas' (LoafMass) (2.) on the 12th of August. Jabbler's Fayre attracted huge crowds and merchants, jesters and musicians from all over Europe (3.). Labourers and farm hands would be offering their services, grazing and tenure rights of pasture were settled and tolls and taxes levied and collected. It is suggested that The Great Blue Stone sat on the high ground of the fayre and was used for striking bargains and making speeches.
The sunrise on Jabblers Fayre is over the Queens Tower on the Castle Wall, shining above the Old Newborough Bar and down Westborough, as seen from the straight approach road to the entrance to the town. This is worth mentioning because this sunrise could have been the traditional signal indicating the beginning of the fayre. Many cities, towns and villages that pre-date medieval times have the same characteristic.
Was the annual Jabbler's Fayre the fair mentioned in the traditional British ballad 'Scarborough Fair', the song made famous by Martin Carthy and later by Simon and Garfunkel? Often places with standing stones, barrows and earthworks become locations of great meetings and events, which in turn inspire great songs and stories. (4.)
Sacred sites across the world are founded on locations that are geologically interesting. The area around the Castle originally suffered a major geological fault which dropped the headland by 60 meters. The applied pressure beneath the surface maybe the reason for the presence of so many wells on the headland as the water stored deep underground is forced towards the surface. (These wells are, 'Our Lady's Well' by the Roman Signal Station, 'The Ballium Well' by the Castle Keep, 'Thomas Hinderwell's Fountain' that was outside of the graveyard by Anne Brontes grave and St Mary's Church itself is reputed to be built over and ancient well). There certainly seems to be an association between the stresses and strains in the earth’s crust and the pressure on bodies of water or on underlying geology to produce a feeling of levity and happiness in a persons temperament and disposition.
"Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Without a seam or needlework,
And she shall be a true love of mine.
Tell him to wash it in yonder dry well,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Where water ne'er sprang nor drop of rain fell,
And he shall be a true love of mine."
(Scarborough Fayre-Traditonal Song)
Queue music 'Sailing By' by Roland Binge....
"Hello and welcome to 'The Great Blue Stone Shipping Forecast'. The sunrise and sunset times and their locations on the old calendar days as seen from The Great Blue Stone are as follows..."
"HeadlandRising on Mayday and the opening day of Jabblers Fayre, are the first time and last time in the year that the sun rises in the north bay, appearing in the left hand corner of the headland for the first time."
"Coomboots falling, on Mayday and the opening day of Jabblers Fayre the sun sets along the row of tumuli along Suffield Moor from the tumulus above Coomboots to Swarth Howe."
"Coffee pot rock Rising, on the Summer Solstice the sun rises left of the headland over the Coffee Pot Rock."
Nettlehead Falling, the sun sets at the point on the horizon marked by the Barrow at Thirley Beck Farm. Keasbeck Hill and Nettlehead make a curious shape on the horizon where the sunset reaches its furthest point north before rolling back westward."
Flamborough Rising, on the Winter Solstice the sun rises spectacularly off Flamborough Head."
"Stepney Falling, the sun sets at 'The Camp' an interesting earthwork at the top of Stepney Rd. Which is aligned to a tumulus and Albermarle Baptist church, the building built over the Damyot spring head. The Damyot was the stream that Scarborough Old Town was originally built around."
This was The Great Blue Stone Shipping forecast wishing you a quiet night. (5.)
DavWhiteArt.com
Afternote:
Many 'menhirs' and standing stones across Europe have been 'Christianised' where crosses or parts of the bible have been carved into the stone. This is the only standing stone I know of where the stone has been 'Antiquarian-ised', where the author's name and book title has been carved into the base.
Appendices and Photos
(1.)Thomas Hinderwell was the renowned antiquarian who wrote 'The History and Antiquities of Scarborough and the Vicinity' published in 1798. The book was described as "one of the most accurate and interesting works relating to this or any other part of England." His name appears on The Great Blue Stone itself, a commemorative decision made after his death, as I'm guessing, because that he seems to be the primary source of information about it.
A little further up the road there is a drinking fountain dedicated to him called the Thomas Hinderwell Fountain. Curiously enough he is buried in St Mary's Graveyard close to the site of The Great Blue Stone and The Thomas Hinderwell Fountain, Scarborough's original features from great antiquity.
(2.) As an old quarter day, Lammas was full of omens, and seen as the antithesis of May Day. The sun was in the same ominous location on the horizon as it was on May Day and folklore decreed that 'misfortune could be reversed' at Lammas.
(3.) Scarborough had weekly markets on different days, held in different locations around the town and they attracted visitors from as far away as Ghent, Ypres and the Baltic, but the Great Jabbler's Fayre was one of the big events of the year. Hinderwell documents,
"Henry III by Charter dated 22nd of January 1255...and that the burgesses and their heirs, for ever, may have one fair in the borough every year to contiunue from the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary until the Feast of St. Michael (12th of August -29th September). It anciently attracted a great concourse of strangers, minstrels,jugglers, and all the ancient scenes of merriment abounded. A grand procession,horses and riders adorned with flowers and hats, a common cryer make proclamation of the mart and welcome strangers to the town. Such was the ancient custom of 'Jabler's Day' , the inhabitants being formerly summoned to pay their 'gablage'. (This customer lasted until around 1788) - Hinderwell, The History and Antiquities of Scarborough and its Vicinity, 1798
(4.) "A universal theme of both folk tale and ballad is that of impossible tasks. In this ballad, the form it takes is that of the courtship, with on flirtatious lover setting a series of tasks and his companion meeting the challenge by setting an equally difficult series. In early forms of the ballad, an elfin knight posed the tasks, to be answered by a maiden who remains free by devising tasks of no less difficulty which must be answered first. It is well known in England" -Ewan Mcoll 1956
"Derived by MacColl from Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs, this is a fragment of an extremely ancient ballad common in all areas of Britain. In the original song a girl hears the far-off blast of the elfin knight's horn and wishes he were in her bedroom. He straightaway appears, but will not consent to be her lover until she answers a series of riddles. This trait of test-by-riddle is a heritage from remote antiquity. The survival of this ancient piece of folklore is assured by the fact that all the couplets in this song contain gentle, but evocative erotic symbols."- Shirley Collins 1960.
"Folklorists and students of plant mythology are well aware that certain herbs were held to have magical significance—that they were used by sorcerers in their spells and conversely as counter-spells by those that wished to outwit them. The herbs mentioned in the refrain of Scarborough Fair (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) are all known to have been closely associated with death and also as charms against the evil eye. The characters in the Elfin Knight (of which Scarborough Fair is a version) are a demon and a maid. The demon sets impossible tasks and on the maid's replies depends whether she will fall into his clutches or not. Child believed that elf to be an interloper from another ballad (Lady Isobel and the Elf Knight) and that he should rightly be mortal, but as Ann Gilchrist points out “why the use of the herb refrain except as an indication of something more than mortal combat?” Sir Walter Scott in his notes to Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border recalled hearing a ballad of “a fiend …paying his addresses to a maid but being disconcerted by the holy herbs she wore in her bosom” and Lucy Broadwood goes as far as to suggest that the refrain might be the survival of an incantation against such a suitor." -Martin Carthy
In our modern times the premise of the song 'Scarborough Fair' seems to echo the experience of benefit claimants, unfairly set impossible tasks and errands, or to complete paperwork which is overly bureaucratic that ultimately results in sanctions or the loss of a basic income.
The Trussell Trust's 2013 report on food banks describes a spike in numbers nationwide when more than one million sanctions were applied following changes to the administration of Jobseeker's Allowance. Food bank use rose by 19%.
Scarborough town’s food bank is at The Rainbow Centre, which is in the building built along the site of the 'Auborough Bar' -one of the gates to the old town a few hundred yards from The Great Blue Stone. If the song 'Scarborough Fair' is set at 'Jabbler's Fayre' how poignant that it still rings with its truths today!
(5.) From its former location on Castle Rd, the Great Blue Stone’s elevated position allows the horizon line to become filled with interesting details. The horizon north-west makes a curious shallow bowl shape from the features of Suffield Moor, Burn Howe Moor, Nettlehead and Standingstones Rigg. They make an interesting measuring tool using the horizon line, and on different summer nights the sun moves from one side of the bowl to the other, setting at different points northwards as it reaches the summer solstice.
It sets at Swarth Howe and along Burn Howe Moor. 'Swarth' might have come from 'Svarti' meaning 'black' (charred) and 'Burn' Howe on Burn Moor may denote ritual fires set during this time of the year.
The Great Blue Stone is now in the courtyard of The Phoenix Court Hotel. The Phoenix is a sunbird associated with fire and rebirth.
The sun continues to set along this horizon from May Day through Rogantide and Whit Week. Many parish boundary lines cross this part of the landscape. Rogantide is the traditional time of the year for ‘Beating the Bounds’ a ritual of walking the boundary lines. Sunset at Whitweek is over the 'Whitway', the old name for the A165, the road from Scarborough to Whitby, crossing some of the old boundary lines.
The furthest point it reaches is the Barrow at Thirley Beck Farm on the summer solstice. As the stone is a large impressive piece of basalt rock, quarried locally as whinstone or bluestone, the nearest source being The Cleveland Dyke, a volcanic fissure on the North York Moore formed 60 million years ago. The last section of The Cleveland Dyke ' Winstone ridge' and perhaps the origin of the old blue stone is where the sun has been setting during most of the summer.
There are many standing stones on the North York Moors that are made from basalt from The Cleveland Dyke and many scared sites that have been placed on the geological fault line that runs dons the coast from Scarborough.
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All images taken with kind permission of Scarborough Museum Trust
Many 'menhirs' and standing stones across Europe have been
'Christianised', where crosses or parts of the bible have been carved into the stone. This is the only standing stone I know of where the stone has been 'Antiquarian-ised', where the author's name and book title has been carved into the base.
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'Christianised' Menhir
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As seen from The Great Blue Stone
As seen from The Great Blue Stone
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As seen from The Great Blue Stone
As seen from The Great Blue Stone
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(Winter Solstice) As seen from The Great Blue Stone
Winter Solstice Sunrise and Sunset from The Great Blue Stone
