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Tag: cross

The Rudston Monolith Part III

This article is the third part of three on the Rudston monolith in the East Riding of Yorkshire. You can read Part I here and Part II here.

I have transcribed the informative leaflet by W. W. Gatenby, which I acquired some years ago during a visit to the monolith and the Church of All Saints at Rudston in North Yorkshire. I’ll transcribe the leaflet exactly as is, which means that some of the phrasing and language reads quite dated, but I will look to re-paragraph some of it for ease of reading.

Rudton monolith and Celtic Cross

Photo Credit: Chris Collyer at stone-circles.org.uk. Used with permission.

An account of the manner in which Christianity came to Rudston in 615AD was recorded by the Venerable Bede of the Abbey at Jarrow-on-Tyne. In scholarly monastic Latin he describes how following the appointment of Edwin as chief of the Celtic tribe of Parisii, to take the place of his ageing father, Edwin had earlier visited the home of the tribe’s leader in Kent where he had asked permission to marry the Chieftain’s daughter, Ethelburga.

The tribe had been visited by by St Augustine some years earlier, and all members had embraced Christianity. Edwin was told that Ethelburga would marry him if he and all his tribe in Yorkshire embraced Christianity too.

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The Rudston Monolith Part II

This article is the second part of three on the Rudston monolith in the East Riding of Yorkshire. You can read Part I here…

I have transcribed the informative leaflet by W. W. Gatenby, which I acquired some years ago during a visit to the monolith and the Church of All Saints at Rudston in North Yorkshire. I’ll transcribe the leaflet exactly as is, which means that some of the phrasing and language reads quite dated, but I will look to re-paragraph some of it for ease of reading.

Rudston Monolith at night

Photo Credit: Chris Collyer at stone-circles.org.uk. Used with permission.

Returning to our thoughts on the Rudston monolith, we can imagine this being loaded on some very well dried beech trees with maximum buoyancy, and taken down either by the River Derwent or the River Rye to the Vale of Pickering, much of which was still under a very considerable depth of water at some seasons of the year, and brought to the foot of the Woldsat some place like Muston. Then the hard work really began to get it as far as Rudston.

It is much less likely that they would attempt the sea journey from the River Esk down the coast. The tide rips at Flamborough Head would cause an extreme hazard to the people attempting to move by hand paddles a 50 feet raft of that weight.

Furthermore, any attempt to take it up the Gypsey Race, which could be dammed in sections, would be foiled because with the length of at least 50 feet, the torturous bends of some parts of the Race would present an impassable barrier.

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The Legend of St Leonard of Reresby Pt II

Correggio's image of Saint LeonardMy earlier blog posting considered the legend of a local saint, Saint Leonard of Reresby, one about which I had never come across until I researched the medieval stone cross at St Leonard’s Church in nearby Thrybergh.

It’s unsurprising that I’ve never come across the legend before as it seems the first time anyone has put any coherent research together is John Doxey’s website on the local area.

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