Data for Guide Stones
West Riding of Yorkshire

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Watersheddles Cross.

On the road to Haworth is Watersheddles reservoir: about halway down the reservoir on the east side is the County Boundary stone marked on old maps as a standing stone.
Some short distance up the moor eastwards is seen the shaft of a cross.Water-sheddles cross.This cross is mentioned in a book kept by the monks of Whalley Abbey and is thus of some antiquity.the shaft is, as so often the case, minus its head.
However,someone in times past has cut the neck of the stone on its top into the shape of a raised Latin Cross,and has incised in the shaft the words "Hanging Stone,or Watersheddles Cross".
The monolith was probably a boundary cross for it stands squarely on the County Boundary.
It is not improbable that the stone marked a gibbet,for the word hanging implies that.
The date of its erection and type of head when erected, if any is unknown.This stone was mentioned in a Boundary Perambulation of the 15th C and again in1605.

The following info is supplied by Mr Richard Thornhill. "Hanging" is from "hangenda", meaning steep or leaning in Old English (cf. Hanging Gate - "steep road" - near Oxenhope). I doubt whether it ever had a cross bar - I think the cross name is due to the carving on the top. The writing was presumably carved after the 1614-1618 court case, but the cross will be much older. I suspect this stone to be a menhir, because it is so deeply fluted, suggesting great age.


LadO'Crow Hill.

Along the boundary Lancashire and Yorkshire,east from Widdop,is a stone which may or may not have been a boundary cross.
This stone is inscised and is called variously Lad O Crow Hill, or Lladdock Royle.
Again we see the celt Lladd.The carving reads "Lad or scarr on crow hill"; a story is told how a boy walking across the moor from Lancashire into Yorkshire was caught in a storm in which he died.
The two counties Quarrelled who should bury him.Lancashire said "no" because died in Yorkshire.Yorkshire said "no" because he died in Lancashire'Eventually Trawden buried him
And Lancashire claimed a great part of the moor.On Crow hill at 1500 ft.is a collection of rocks called Oakden Stones,or Alcomden Stones, which Lewis'Topographical Dictionary tells us is a Cromlech,an evident Druidical remain.
Although most legends have a basis in fact,it is doubtful that the word "Lad "refers to an actual boy as we have seen.
As a section of Yorkshire are included in Lancashire under the new Boundary changes in 1974 certain Yorkshire Crosses are included in this paper along with one or two others not strictley in Lancashire.


K C and H Stones information supplied by Mr Steven Wood.

The stones marked K C 1902 mark out an area of moorland purchased by Keighley Corporation from the Stanbury Freeholders in 1902.
This moor forms a large catchment area for Keighley's reservoirs in the Worth Valley.

The stone Marked H is a Haworth Manor boundary stone it actually marks the point where the Haworth/Stanbury boundary meets the Wadsworth boundary.