The Link Stone
A perambulation of the boundaries of the Malvern Chase in 1584 describes "a great Stone in a Tufte of bushes" at Link Top which was recorded on a Stuart map as the "Whore Stone" (meaning hoar or ancient stone). In 1744 the Link Stone was located at the beginning of Pickersleigh road. It has since been relocated to the St Matthias churchyard.
An inscription on a plaque near the stone reads:-
This stone originally marked the boundary between the Manors of Leigh and Powick. It was already old in 1584 when a breathless Elizabethan gentleman noted it during "beating the bounds". In the Stuart period it was marked on an estate map as the "Old Stone". The central recess is a receptacle for coins perpetuating the very old custom of receiving payment for the right of passage through the parish. This custom was acknowledged by mourners, who would rest a coffin on the Link Stone on its way to Leigh from the Pickersleigh side of the Link, a practice probably not discontinued until 1846 when St Matthias was consecrated.
Read more about this topic: Malvern Link
Famous quotes containing the words link and/or stone:
“John Brown and Giuseppe Garibaldi were contemporaries not solely in the matter of time; their endeavors as liberators link their names where other likeness is absent; and the peaks of their careers were reached almost simultaneously: the Harper’s Ferry Raid occurred in 1859, the raid on Sicily in the following year. Both events, however differing in character, were equally quixotic.”
—John Cournos (1881–1956)
“I passed a tomb among green shades
Where seven anemones with down-dropped heads
Wept tears of dew upon the stone beneath.”
—Unknown. The Thousand and One Nights.
AWP. Anthology of World Poetry, An. Mark Van Doren, ed. (Rev. and enl. Ed., 1936)