Medieval Leicester - St John's Stone

From: https://x.com/historyofLeice1/status/1632690290074046465

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Medieval Leicester

St John's Stone

Origins

The St John's Stone stood in open fields on Leicester Abbey land in an area called Johnstone Close. Although now destroyed, the stone is thought to have originally been part of a Bronze Age stone circle some 5000 years old. The earliest known historical reference to the stone, however dates, to the year 1831.

For centuries, it had great significance for local people. Early in the nineteenth century, a semi-circular amphitheatre was hewn from the hillside so people could  sit and look at it. It then stood some seven feet high. The Leicester artist John Flower made a drawing of it in 1815 when it was still a substantial edifice, but by 1835 it had become reduced to about three feet by people breaking off pieces of its soft sandstone.

Legend and Mythology

It is claimed that the sunrise on Midsummer's Day aligns Saint John’s Stone with the Humber Stone, which lies to the east. Others claim that the two stones align on May Day, the Feast of Beltane.

It is said that the stone was frequented by fairies, who would dance around it at sundown. A custom which survived until the nineteenth century involved visits to the stone on St John’s Day (24 June) for a festival echoing ancient fire and sun worship.

Where is the stone today?

While fragments claimed to be from the stone can be found in St. Luke's Church, Stocking Farm, nothing now exists at its original location. The place where the stone once stood is now within a private property on Somerset Avenue, in the suburbs off the city’s Blackbird Road/ Stadium Estate.