Who was Dick? I’d love to know. The lane he has given his name to is wide and enclosed by dry stone walls and nowadays seemingly only used as a Public Footpath. It was my route to bag Stoodley Pike which dominates the Calder valley in West Yorkshire. This monument takes the form of an obelisk but at 121′ it is over twice as high as Captain Cook’s Monument on Easby Moor. It was built in 1856 after an earlier monument collapsed. The inscription is hard to read but Wikipedia records it as :
STOODLEY PIKE
A BEACON MONUMENT
ERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION
COMMENCED IN 1814 TO COMMEMORATE
THE SURRENDER OF PARIS TO THE ALLIES
AND FINISHED AFTER THE BATTLE OF
WATERLOO WHEN PEACE WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1815.
BY A STRANGE COINCIDENCE
THE PIKE FELL ON THE DAY THE RUSSIAN
AMBASSADOR LEFT LONDON BEFORE THE
DECLARATION OF WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1854.
WAS REBUILT WHEN PEACE WAS RESTORED IN
1856
RESTORED AND LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR FIXED
1889
In one of my postings last year I referred to an article which suggested a masonic connection with Captain Cook’s Monument. A bit conjectural that was but Stoodley Pike does indeed have masonic origins. There is a masonic six-pointed ‘Star of David’ inscribed on a lintol and apparently also a crossed compass and square, another masonic symbol, but I didn’t spot that.
Out and About ... 