The Old Wife of Lund Ridge

 Lund Ridge is located 4 miles to the north of Helmsley, on the North York Moors.

 The first edition OS map (1857) shows a stone called the "Old Wife" located alongside a footpath running across the moorland on Lund Ridge. The stone does not appear on later maps, but overlaying the old and new maps provided a grid reference SE61062 91175. A visit to the site in 2016 found no stone at the map location, however a short standing stone was noted by the road side 30m further west. It was also noted that a track cut through the heather had exposed the land surface where the Old Wife Stone originally stood, and this had revealed a spread of stones - possibly the remains of a cairn. Some confirmation of this came from the Historic Environment Record map which shows a large cairnfield across the southern end of Lund Ridge.

 The above information begins to point to the Old Wife Stone having stood on, or alongside, a small cairn on the edge of the cairnfield on Lund Ridge. Sometime during the late 1800's the stone was removed, but where did it go? It is worth noting that the short standing stone by the roadside is not marked on the early OS maps, so there is a strong possibility that the 'Old Wife' was simply moved the 30m or so across the moor and placed alongside the track rather than the footpath. This may have taken place when the footpath crossing the moor fell out of use.

The identity of the 'Old Wife' is a whole topic in itself, but she is essentially a legendary figure connected with a number of locations across Northern Britain. As a giantess she is connected with prehistoric sites, and so finding her name attached to a standing stone next to a cairn in a cairnfield is not unexpected. No doubt there was once a story to explain how this stone came by its name, but this folklore does not appear to have been recorded. At other sites the giantess was said to have been carrying a heap of stones in her apron, but the apron broke and the stones fell to the ground forming a mound or cairn.

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