Fairy Stone, Cottingley, Bingley, West Yorkshire

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 0980 3789

Cottingley Woods famous Fairy Stone cup-and-ring (photo credit - Michala Douglas 2009)

Getting Here

To get there, start from Bingley centre, go through Myrtle Park, across the river bridge and turn right at the dirt-track. Walk on & go over the old bridge/ford of Harden Beck, keeping with the track until the next set of buildings and be aware of a footpath left here. Take this and cross the golf-course, bearing SE until you reach the edge of Cottingley Woods. Take the distinct footpath into the trees & walk up the vivid moss-coloured path until you reach the level at the top where the woods become more deciduous. Here, turn left for 150 yards into the bit of woodland which has been fenced-off and walk about. You’ll find it!

Archaeology & History

This is a truly superb cup-and-ring stone which anyone into the subject must take a look at!  It was first found by the old forester here, Ronald Bennett, in 1966. Everything about it’s excellent — but I think the setting in woodland is what really brings it out.

The first published photograph of this stone seems to have been the one which accompanied Joe Cooper’s (1982) precursory essay on the Cottingley Fairies in an article he wrote for The Unexplained magazine in the 1980s.  Curiously omitted from Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey, I described it in The Old Stones of Elmet (2001) a few years earlier, along with a mention of the others which are close by — but this carving stands out as the best of the bunch by far!  Its name has nothing to do with the Cottingley Fairy folk down town: it simply originates from my own teenage thoughts and the true ambience of the setting. Check it out!

Folklore

In an early edition of my old Fortean archaeology rag of the 1980s, I narrated the tale of one Anne Freeman, who was walking through the woods here.  When she reached the top of the woods, near some stones she heard a loud chattering and allegedly saw two tiny figures barely one-foot tall wearing red outfits and green hats in “medieval peasant dress”.  Andy Roberts (1992) later repeated the tale in his Yorkshire folklore work.

In the 1960s, the old ranger of this wood was a chap called Ronnie Bennett (no relative of mine) who also alleged to have seen little people here: “not one, but three,” as he said. Not fairies with wings, but more gnome-like.

References:

Bennett, Paul,’Tales of Yorkshire Faeries,’ in Earth 9, 1988.
Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
Cooper, Joe, ‘Cottingley: At Last the Truth,’ in The Unexplained 117, 1982
Roberts, Andy, Ghosts and Legends of Yorkshire, Jarrold 1992.