Commentary

As we spent time talking around the stone, it’s presence and significance became more apparent; it’s very existence was to stand tall against the featureless, the nondescript! It was here to give meaning and direction, and this became central to my piece of writing. It felt like the words had always been in the stone, waiting for three hundred years for me to find them.

Adam and I developed some ideas on the spot, and were particularly taken by the small mound extending from the base of the stone. I had imagined our companion stone to be a carefully split piece with the poem being exposed like a discovered fossil. On seeing the site I was convinced by Adam’s notion that the piece should seem ‘fallen’, breaking itself across the edge of the mound, and exposing the poem in the ‘heart of the stone’. - Noel Connor

grid reference  SK 29496 67395

This
Companion Stone

Other
Companion Stones

Other
Guide Stoops

Site numbering
taken from
Howard Smith's
Guide Stoops
of Derbyshire