A farmer’s fascination with the art of stone-lifting led to a search for forgotten boulders used in the sport across Teesdale.
Reporter Nicky Carter spoke to Calum Stott about his adventures.
A CUMBRIAN farmer turned detective to track down two long-forgotten stones in Teesdale, used in traditional strength lifting challenges.
Calum Stott, from Tebay, only took up stone-lifting a year ago. It’s a sport that dates back hundreds of years and involves proving your strength by lifting heavy natural stones.
After listening to a podcast about the discovery of Irish lifting stones he decided to hunt out stones in his native county in an effort to help revive the sport.
Mr Stott said: “I’m fairly new to the world of lifting stones and strength culture. It is quite a niche sport, but I was inspired after listening to a podcast by David Keohan and I thought I would do the same in Cumbria.
“I read everything I could find on stone lifting and I was convinced I’d find lifting stones in Cumbria.”
Although he did find references to historic stones close to Ennerdale Water on a 19th century map, after exploring the area he couldn’t locate them but was hooked on finding others in northern England.
The father-of two added: “I went back to researching and found Roger Davis had researched English lifting stones a decade ago. At that time, he pulled a stone from a river to help revive the culture in England, but no one had seen or lifted it since.”
The smooth whinstone boulder called the Teesdale Feat Stone, was used at a festival held at The Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle, for a strong man challenge in 2012.
To prove their strength contestants had to lift the feat stone from the ground onto a wooden table during the two-week event organised by the Vernacular Architecture Revival Initiative (VAR).
Mr Scott said: “Since the event it appears the stone had vanished. I emailed the museum and spoke to the events manager and a few stone hunters, but no one knew of it.”
He managed to track down festival organiser – former Teesdale stonemason, Ewan Allinson, who now lives in Edinburgh.
“He confirmed he and Roger [Davis] had selected and heaved the stone out of the River Tees. He thought the stone should still be in a field close to where he lived in Lunedale.
“Ewan also told me the story of the Lonton Egg – a large, smooth, egg-shaped stone that sits in the garden of an old smithy.”
Legend has it that young men would challenge each other to lift this stone on the walk home from the pubs in nearby Middleton-in-Teesdale.
Mr Stott managed to track down the owner of the property where the Lonton Egg is laid and arranged a visit to see if he could lift the stone.
He said: “I remember thinking to myself this was a much bigger stone than I have ever lifted. As it rolled over, I could immediately see it was dead smooth with a large indent on one side providing very little in terms of handles or grip.”
After several failed attempts to lift the stone and buoyed on by the news the property owner’s uncle had lifted the mighty stone a few inches off the ground sometime in the 1960s, Mr Stott raised the 130kg stone, but only for a second.
He said: “I was on an unbelievable high. It is the first historic stone that I found which I had permission to lift.”
While celebrating his first historic stone lift with lunch at a cafe in Middleton-in-Teesdale Mr Stott received a phone call from the farmer in whose field the Teesdale Feat Stone had been left in.
He said: “He was planning to mow some of the fields near where Ewan used to live and mentioned he’d keep an eye out for the stone and asked whether I knew where it might be. I didn’t but I said I would stop by and help him search.”
They found a rounded boulder nestled in a nettlebed adjacent to a stone wall at Thringarth and after comparing it with photographs of the Teesdale Feat Stone agreed it was one and the same thanks to a distinguishing cream lichen.
He broached the subject of moving the stone to a publicly accessible location and was given the go-ahead.
A month after finding it Mr Stott made the trip back to Teesdale with fellow stone lifters Harry Reeve and Jono Pritchard to relocate the 138kg Teesdale Feat Stone.
He added: “The stone needed to remain in Teesdale. Ewan suggested we place it next to the Pennine Way footpath. He knew the farmer who owned the field next the River Tees where he and Roger [Davis] had originally pulled it out of the water.
“We found the perfect position for it, on a rounded knoll looking down over Middleton-in-Teesdale,” Mr Stott said.
Before packing up and heading off the three stone lifters tested their strength lifting the newly positioned stone.
Locations for both stones have since been added to a map and anyone wishing to lift the Lonton Egg should contact Mr Stott through Instagram at https://www. instagram.com/calums_ adventures/ so a date can be arranged.
