The tallest standing stone in Britain, a great gritstone pillar that has stood in a Yorkshire churchyard far longer than the church
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Standing remainssubstantial fabric survives to stand in front of
In the churchyard at Rudston, hard against the parish church, stands a single gritstone pillar about 7.6 metres tall — the tallest standing stone in Britain. Some accounts say as much stone again lies buried below ground to hold it upright. The pillar is prehistoric, raised in the late Neolithic or Bronze Age, thousands of years before the medieval church beside it; whoever put it up hauled the gritstone from the coast several miles away, since the local ground is chalk. The village name comes from the old words for ‘cross-stone’, a memory of the day Christians set their church next to a much older marker rather than move it. Rudston sits inland on the Yorkshire Wolds, a short drive from Bridlington and the seabird cliffs of Flamborough Headland.
More at the National Heritage List entry
