Record Details
| NHER Number: | 10907 |
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| Type of record: | Monument |
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| Name: | Site of Oxfoot Stone |
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Summary
A stone with a mark resembling an ox hoofprint, around which local legends have grown. This may not be in its original position, and when last seen was inside NHER 20152.
Images - none
Location
| Grid Reference: | TM 052 810 |
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| Map Sheet: | TM08SE |
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| Parish: | SOUTH LOPHAM, BRECKLAND, NORFOLK |
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Full description
Stone with a matrix of a fossil bivalve, resembling an ox hoofprint, around which local legends have grown.
July 1988. Visited.
Overgrown, in garden of Oxfootstone Farm.
Flat brown boulder about 1m across, imprint is on one edge; many other surface irregularities.
Stated by owner to have been in other locations in parish before being brought to the farm before the 19th century.
E. Rose (NAU), 7 July 1988.
1994. According to (S1) (filed under NHER 20152) the stone is now in the conservatory of the farmhouse under a table!
2008. The legend attached to this stone is as follows:-
A farm at South Lopham in Norfolk takes its name from the Ox-Foot Stone, a large sarsen slab now in the garden of the farmhouse. There is a mark upon it (now rather indistinct) said to be the hoof-print of a fairy cow which regularly appeared at the spot, to be milked by the villagers during a long period of drought. When the dearth ended, the obliging animal stamped its hoof once upon the stone and vanished. But according to another version of the story, the cow was a fairy normal (!) beast which also provided Lopham with milk. Then one evening a villager, who had 'drunk too deeply of the Norfolk nut-brown ale' went down to the meadow armed with a sieve instead of a pail. He milked the cow not only until she was dry, but until he actually drew blood. At this, the poor creature bellowed, and stamped with pain so hard that she left her hoof-mark on a flat stone upon which she had been standing!
D. Gurney (NLA), 17 April 2008
Monument Types
- STANDING STONE (Unknown date)
- STONE (Undated)
Associated Finds
- CEREMONIAL OBJECT (Undated)
Protected Status - none
Sources and further reading
| --- | Record Card: NAU Staff. 1974-1988. Norfolk Archaeological Index Primary Record Card. |
| --- | Record Card: Clarke, R. R. and NCM Staff. 1933-1973. Norwich Castle Museum Record Card - Miscellaneous. South Lopham. |
| <S1> | Newspaper Article: Eastern Daily Press. 1994. Historic house has imprint from past. 11 February. |
Related records - none
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