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<< Feature Articles >> The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy?

Submitted by Thorgrim on Monday, 07 December 2020  Page Views: 22696

Multi-periodCountry: England Type: Marker Stone

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Great Bedwyn Puddingstone
Great Bedwyn Puddingstone submitted by Thorgrim : The Puddingstone Trail from Grimes Graves to Stonehenge. (Vote or comment on this photo)
This article was originally published in 2005: Is there a lost Neolithic trade route that took high quality flint from the mines at Grimes Graves to Stonehenge? Dr Ernest Rudge certainly thought so and spent many years researching what he called a "Lost Highway". Rudge located many puddingstone boulders that he thought acted as marker stones along the way. After his death in 1984, his work was summarised by John Cooper of the Department of Palaeontology at London's Natural History Museum. His summary gives a detailed itinerary, much of which I have now plotted on the Megalithic Map. I have John's permission to use information from his publication and he is delighted that further research will continue.

Do the stones mark an ancient trade route? Is there evidence of Pagan worship? Long distance trade routes certainly existed long before the coming of the Romans and the Icknield Way is an undisputed track from 'Seahenge' to Stonehenge via Grimes Graves- its name changes en route from Peddars Way to Icknield Way to Ridgeway. So why was there a need for another trackway? Perhaps the answer lies in the route chosen in as much as it is not as direct as the Icknield Way - it makes a dog-leg into Essex and comes close to Colchester at Stanway (meaning the stone way). The route then goes on to St Albans before heading directly towards Wiltshire. The suggestion is that the track served communities in what is now Suffolk, Essex and Hertfordshire. (See sketch map here)

What is Puddingstone?

Puddingstone is so named because it looks like a plum pudding stuffed with fruit. Rounded flint pebbles in river beds were covered in sediment that was turned into quartzite under immense pressure. Then glaciers tore up the river beds and sections became conglomerate boulders that were embedded in the ice and moved south as the glaciers advanced. When the glaciers melted, the boulders were left behind in debris of mud, gravel and clay.

Apart from clay and gravel, East Anglia has no stone other than chalk with flint nodules, so large erratic boulders would probably have had special significance to early inhabitants of the region. Puddingstone varies from the younger "iron-puddingstone" of Essex (one million years old) to the more angular puddingstones of Hertfordshire and Bradenham (55 million years old) and then to the sandstone sarsens which sometimes just have a narrow "stringer" of pebbles. Dr Rudge regarded them all as puddingstones and markers of his highway.

Where are the Puddingstones?

Dr Rudge began his research sometime in the 1940's and published his first paper in 1949. Thereafter, he continued to publish his work in popular and academic journals, copies of which I retain. He was no armchair theorist, but a dedicated fieldworker who, accompanied by his wife Lilian, went out to search for puddingstones. He began close to home near Waltham Abbey (see Holyfield). Initially it seemed that puddingstones were found to mark places where lanes crossed or forked. Then he found boulders marking fords and so indicating safe river crossings.

As he discovered more such stones, it became apparent to him that the stones were beginning to form a long distance trackway. Then he went on to search for stones that would continue in the directions that he assumed i.e. towards Grimes Graves and towards Stonehenge. The key questions here is - did Dr Rudge only search for and record puddingstones that lay along the route that he had determined in advance? The answer appears to be "Yes" as there are other puddingstones nearby marking lane junctions and fords that he did not include (e.g. Standon and Ugley).

This does not diminish Rudge's theory, but it blurs it somewhat. Central to this is the issue of whether today we find erratics exactly where the glaciers dropped them - or whether they have been moved by the hand of man for whatever purpose. They certainly have been moved in modern times - some to inn yards as mounting blocks, others as lanes were widened into roads and even taken into gardens for rockeries and grottoes (Saffron Walden). Dr Rudge was accused of ignoring the random scatter of erratics and answered thus "For fourteen miles from the White Notley stone to Boyton Hall have been found a series of unusually large boulders, in conspicuous positions, with no scatter of smaller specimens between. Intensive searching over several years failed to find any other conglomerate stones, emphasising the truth that this exercise has never consisted in drawing an arbitrary line through such a scatter to suit the whim of the searcher."

Pagan Worship?

There can be no doubt that erratic puddingstones were special in an otherwise stone-less landscape. They are still to be found by fords, by lane crossings and also in ancient churchyards. So in addition to asking ourselves if they were used as way markers, we can also wonder if they were venerated. Puddingstones are built into the fabric of some early churches (Magdalen Laver), which seems very sensible when all other stone would have been brought in by barge and wagon from elsewhere. Some stones were not used in the building though, yet they remain in the churchyard (Tilty).

A strong indication that puddingstones may have been worshipped as pagan religious objects may be deduced from accounts of the earliest Christian missionaries to the Pagan Anglo-Saxons. In 601 AD, Pope Gregory instructed missionaries to the English that "the temples of the idols in England should not on any account be destroyed. Augustine should smash the idols, but the temples should be sprinkled with holy water and turned into churches". This tells us that many Saxon churches were built on the sites of pagan temples. Furthermore, in 625 AD, Pope Boniface wrote to King Edwin condemning idol worship - saying "How can such stocks and stones have power to assist you when they are made from perishable materials by the labour of your own subjects?" Whether natural or carved (Standon is surely woman shaped), the pagans of East Anglia can have only worshipped puddingstones and sarsens as they were the ONLY stones in the area.

Where do we go from here?

Like John Cooper, I am left sitting on the fence. Puddingstones do mark fords and lane junctions. They are found in ancient churchyards and built into the foundations of Saxon churches. They are wonderful, beautiful and weird. However, Dr Rudge was clearly determined to find and plot those stones that led in the directions that he wanted. There are other stones, off the track, equally valid as waymarkers - so I also see a broad network of local tracks rather than just a single long distance path. That does not mean that the Lost Trackway from Grimes Graves to Stonehenge is an illusion anymore than that the presence of our local road networks mean that motorways do not exist. We know that there was considerable trade in the Neolithic - e.g. stone axes from Langdale in Cumbria finding their way to Ireland, Lincolnshire and Devon. There is nothing improbable about Rudge's highway - it's perfectly possible and on balance I would say - probable. Initially sceptical, I am now much more inclined to acceptance after plotting it on the Megalithic Map. The unique properties of the largest scale "pop-up" maps through the East Anglian sections show the Puddingstone Trail very clearly indeed.

So now, we need to get out there to find and photograph as many puddingstones as we can. Will they confirm the trail or blur the picture by showing a confused network of locations? This is original research and I would appreciate all the help I can get. To see information on the puddingstones so far found and described on the Megalithic Portal, enter "puddingstone" into the Search Box or click here. The pop-up maps are available by clicking on the first orange icon from any site. The full itinerary can be found in "The Lost Trackway - from Grime's Graves to Stonehenge" by Ernest A. Rudge, Ph.D. edited and prepared for publication by John Cooper in 1994. See also Megalithic Portal exclusive article on the "The Sacred Stones of Essex".

Final Word.

Ernest Rudge traced his trackway from Grime Graves in Norfolk to Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire. Then he wrote:

"This is as far as I am able to follow the trail of boulders, for age and infirmity - I am approaching my ninetieth birthday - demands human forces that I am now incapable of commanding, and I must leave it to a younger man to close that tantalising short gap of a few miles, to the ford over the river Avon, towards which the line of boulders is undoubtedly pointing... And so to Durrington and the traveller will then stand at the end of The Avenue and see before him the solitary sentinel of Stonehenge, the Heel Stone." Dr Rudge's challenge has now been accepted.

View all the puddingstones.

Note: Mike Burgess has completed his nine-year project examining Dr. Ernest Rudge's doubtful Puddingstone Track theory. The write-up is now available on his web site Hidden East Anglia. Mike has photographed and measured every stone he could access from Norfolk to Oxfordshire and finds that sadly the idea doesn't hold water. But as we like cataloguing and 'collecting' stones in the landscape we're glad he did it.

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"The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy?" | Login/Create an Account | 25 News and Comments
  
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Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by willowman1 on Monday, 07 December 2020
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'The Puddingstone Track: Deconstructed'.
I've finally finished the project I started nine years ago - having nothing better to do - which was to examine in depth Dr. Ernest Rudge's doubtful theory of the Puddingstone Track. I don't suppose it will interest more than a few, but this is now available on my website 'Hidden East Anglia', at http://www.hiddenea.com/PuddingstoneTrack I've photographed and measured every stone that I could locate and access from Norfolk to Oxfordshire - which wasn't always easy, as Rudge's map references and distances were often wildly inaccurate. Even he never saw 21% of the stones on his 'final version' of the Track. But I was able to determine that at least 15 of the boulders weren't puddingstone at all. And where it was possible, by researching their history in the landscape I discovered some that weren't in those locations until the 19th century at the earliest.

Through both his printed works and his unpublished letters I was able to unravel the complicated evolution of his Track theory, his errors of fact, and his flawed search for puddingstone. I've investigated the archaeology, geology and topography of that theory, and I've set it within the context of other supposed Neolithic long-distance trackways such as the Icknield Way, Ridgeway and South Downs Way (all of which are also sadly lacking in evidence.) In addition, I've looked at the notions (shared by Rudge) about the incorporation of 'pagan' stones into churches - which are fraught with assumption and misconception.

Unfortunately, even if the concept of the Puddingstone Track were thought to be sound - which it certainly isn't - it falls to pieces under close examination of its construction and constituent parts.
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    Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by HarryTwenty on Monday, 07 December 2020
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    Sounds like an interesting project. Could have saved yourself some time re- the Ridgeway, The Friends of the Ridgeway have this info up on their website:

    https://ridgewayfriends.org.uk/the-trail/the-ancient-ridgeway/

    "The Ridgeway, like other pre-historic routes, was never a single, designated road, but rather a complex of braided tracks, with subsidiary ways diverging and coming together. Successive ages made use of the route for their own purposes, and left the marks of their passage."

    The idea of the present route goes back to the Hobhouse Committee of 1947 and was designated by the Government in 1972 (Wikipedia).

    Well worth walking it though.
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      Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by willowman1 on Tuesday, 08 December 2020
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      Hello.
      That quote about the "complex of braided tracks" is precisely why I contrasted the Ridgeway (as well as the Harroway, North Downs Way and others) with the Puddingstone Track in my study. Rudge's PT was supposedly a constructed, point-to-point route by sighting along boulders for 193 miles, a single trackway with no alternatives, in contrast to every other known track. As for being 'prehistoric', the evidence for all these routes points to a post-Roman origin, or Iron Age at best. None have any evidence for being Neolithic, unfortunately.
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        Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by HarryTwenty on Tuesday, 08 December 2020
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        Hello willowman,
        Possibly small sections of them were originally in use during the Neolithic as there is evidence of traded goods which had to get from A to B somehow (part of the 'braiding'), and there seemed to have been some sorts of droveways as evidenced by isotope analyses of animal bones which point to movement. Subsequent use over the centuries or rewilding may have obscured any of the original traces but no, there is no evidence at present of any large dedicated straight trackways from this period.

        The only current evidence for large scale straight-line building in the Neolithic are cursuses and none of them even touch the distances suggested by Rudge so it would have been a first if true.

        As for 'not interesting more than a few', at over 18,000 reads I'd say you have generated a lot of interest!
        [ Reply to This ]
          Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by willowman1 on Wednesday, 09 December 2020
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          Hah! I'd love to think there's that much interest, but I think you'll find those 18000+ reads are for the original article, accumulated since 2005!
          [ Reply to This ]
    Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Andy B on Monday, 07 December 2020
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    Thanks Mike, this is great stuff, I've put this on our front page. Have you let John Cooper at the Natural History Museum know (if he's still around?)
    [ Reply to This ]
      Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by willowman1 on Tuesday, 08 December 2020
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      Hi Andy.
      As far as I can determine, Mr. Cooper retired from the NHM many years ago. I tried to contact him back in 2016, but it turned out that I'd found the wrong 'John Cooper', who worked at a different museum. I haven't been able to track down the right man, and I'm not sure if he's still living.

      Thanks for featuring my work on the front page! I have a feeling only a handful of people will be interested, but it's kept me busy in retirement. Now, on to the next project!
      [ Reply to This ]

Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? (New stone?) by Anonymous on Thursday, 09 May 2019
Hi, I thought I had posted this a few years ago but it seems maybe not, or I just can't find it!

I know of a possible 'puddingstone' in the village of Denston in Suffolk. Until moved recently by philistine property developers, it sat on a crossroads, at a river crossing, and where the boundaries of two different villages meet. It has always been considered by historians to be the original 'settlement' stone of the village, and is shown as a boundary marker on maps of the 1800s.

I grew up in the pub which the stone sat in front of, and so when the building were unsympathetically part demolished and redeveloped a few years ago, with the stone being pointlessly removed from its longstanding and historically significant position, I put together research to ensure that the local archaeological service would ensure that it was protected.

The stone was recognised as being historically important, and I was told by St Edmundsbury Archaeology dept that it would be added to the HER, but it hasn't been so far.

The stone can now be seen just to the side of the main frontage of the building. The pub was previously known as 'The Plumbers Arms' but the redevelopment is now called Plumbers Mews, and is on the A143 halfway between Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill. I'd be really interested to hear peoples thoughts on this location and route.

Site of the stone while I lived there: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.1575294,0.5687984,3a,37.5y,264.25h,61.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sCxNzNLSuswbeaPKFiErjtQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

It was originally right on the corner of the building (high left of the image) but is now tucked around the other side, behind this image.
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    Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? (New stone?) by Anonymous on Thursday, 04 June 2020
    My home village is Kersey in mid Suffolk where there is a large puddingstone in the walkway nearing the knoll at the opposite end to the Church and which has been saved at the last minute several times from the 'uninformed' who have tried on various occasions to have it removed.
    There was an article in the East Anglian Magazine about this and other local puddingstones en route and how this started at St Albans.
    The thing that convinces me about the route is that if we can only bring our now highly literate selves to think in terms of the pronunciation of the bygone culture we will find that Kersey is the correct pronunciation for Causeway and I have found the word used for such in other local villages
    I would be pleased to hear from anyone prepared to share their observations
    Neil Lanham, traditionsofsuffolk@gmail.com
    [ Reply to This ]

Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by willowman1 on Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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Over the past two years I've made a series of journeys by motorbike totalling almost 2800 miles, in a quest for the truth behind Dr. Rudge's 'Puddingstone Track'. From north-west Norfolk (Rudge's original starting-point for his Track), I've followed the trail down through Suffolk, Essex, parts of Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and into Oxfordshire. Since my last update, the total number of stones that still exist has risen slightly from 43 to 45 - but of those definitely lost, the number has gone from 36 to 54. Unfortunately for Rudge's theory (and his methods), the total that aren't puddingstone at all has risen from 7 to 13.

As I'm looking at the totality of Rudge's work, not just the final form of his Track as described in 'The Lost Trackway', I've also been investigating the 47 other stones that he originally included but later omitted. As before, 12 of these have survived, but the number definitely lost has risen to 18. Six of the total are now known not to be puddingstone or any form of conglomerate.

There are some stones that I'll never get to see, as they're high up on wooded hills, on long footpaths that my left hip now won't let me walk. Others are in places that are too difficult to access, on farms at the end of private roads, or guarded by electronic gates and cameras. The countryside, unfortunately, is now much less open than it was when Dr. Rudge and his wife were researching back in the 1950's, but next year I still hope to continue my quest, exploring Hertfordshire further, as well as filling in a few gaps in Essex.
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Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by willowman1 on Saturday, 03 December 2016
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I've been investigating Dr. Rudge's Puddingstone Track or Trail in depth over the past five years. There's still a long way to go, but at the moment I can say this: there are 138 stones listed in 'The Lost Trackway', and 43 definitely still exist (although 9 have been moved - sometimes not far - from the location given by Dr. Rudge.) 36 have been destroyed or lost, with another 8 almost certainly lost, going by developments that have taken place at their sites. The status of the remaining 51 is currently unknown to me, but of these there are 15 that will never be traced, either because Dr. Rudge was too vague with their locations, or because they were deep within woodland and he never even saw them. There are at least two cases that I know of (at Newgate Street in Hertfordshire, and Bucklebury in Berkshire) where he learned of puddingstones from geological surveys, and despite never visiting them gave map references - but the original sources give no precise locations at all.

In the 'Essex Naturalist' of March 1952, Rudge said that "The most important feature of this trail of boulders is the uniformity of the material used. Without a single exception every trackstone is of conglomerate rock." And again in 'The Lost Trackway': "Above all else, every boulder was of the easily recognisable pebbly conglomerate." It's hard to reconcile these statements with the fact that, of the 43 I know still exist, 7 are not puddingstone or indeed any kind of conglomerate at all.

In the published writings of Dr. Rudge and his wife between 1950 and 1962, there are a further 47 puddingstones that were originally a part of his track, but these are omitted, without explanation, from 'The Lost Trackway'. 17 of these have gone, but 12 still exist - and 5 of these aren't conglomerate either.

As I approach retirement, I hope to complete my research within the next couple of years, and publish a full treatment of the Track on my own website 'Hidden East Anglia'. It's not a subject that many people are interested in nowadays, but what the hell, it keeps me occupied in my old age!
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Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by GP1 on Sunday, 12 April 2015
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The Roysia Stone (a very large puddingstone) should be added to this trail (the town of Royston is believed to take its name from it).
This is a link
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    Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by willowman1 on Sunday, 19 April 2015
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    No it shouldn't.
    A) It's not puddingstone, it's millstone grit.
    B) It's 25 miles north of any line that was ever suggested for the Puddingstone Trail.
    [ Reply to This ]

Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by MattEU on Thursday, 23 February 2012
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Hi, I would like to explore this further on foot.

Does anyone have contact details for the author of the post, or John Cooper or how to order the book The Lost Trackway - from Grime's Graves to Stonehenge. I do not seem to be able to find the information.

Thanks
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Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Anonymous on Sunday, 08 October 2006
Are there any Puddingstones in ireland?
harryeakin@hotmail.com
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    Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Andy B on Sunday, 08 October 2006
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    Good question, I don't know. The source erratic boulders seem to be connected with the southern-most places that the ice sheets got to in the Ice Ages. I'm not sure where the equivalent was in Ireland.
    [ Reply to This ]

Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Anonymous on Saturday, 26 November 2005
Having walked along many sections of the route, and explored far and wide in search of other pudding/stones i am convinced that route/s existed long ago, and stones erected on Rudges track and others inter-related to other communities in the region. Regret to point out that many stones on Rudges list do not exist now - but some others tucked away for posterity. Figure others have been buried, moved, disgarded, etc.
gabriel blamires book with cheshire stones 'guidestones to the great langdale axe factories' isbn 0-9550270-0-4 , shows grounds for correspondances.
can peterH/ Thorgrim get in touch with me ?

trui3456@aol.com
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    Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Thorgrim on Saturday, 26 November 2005
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    Good to hear from you, Trui. I have emailed you privately.
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Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Andy B on Tuesday, 25 January 2005
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You can also follow the trail on the main Megalith Map, with the site filter set to Natural Stone/Glacial Erratic: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/asb_mapsquare.php?op=map&sq=TL&sitetype=36

Click anywhere on the map to zoom in a bit.
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Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Andy B on Tuesday, 25 January 2005
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That's amazing - you really can follow the puddingstone trail with the pop-up maps. A fascinating idea that I've not come across before, how did you hear of it Thorgrim?
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    Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Thorgrim on Tuesday, 25 January 2005
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    First came across it in Essex Countryside magazine years ago and then started to find stones myself. Only when I began plotting them on the Megalithic Map did I really see the reality of the trackway emerging. Poor old Dr Rudge suffered the usual fate of amateurs daring to suggest anything new to the archaeological establishment when he published in academic press.

    More than 100 hits on the article's first day on the Portal! Delighted!
    [ Reply to This ]
      Re: The Puddingstone Trail - fact or fantasy? by Andy B on Tuesday, 25 January 2005
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      Yes, we have a keen readership for original articles, reviews etc if anyone else would like to submit one. Best to run the idea by Vicky or myself first (see the Contact links) if you're not sure if it's something we'd want to publish.
      [ Reply to This ]

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