Robin Hood’s Pennystone, Lunedale

The Story of Robin Hood's Pennystone

There are some places in Teesdale where the landscape almost seems to invite a story.

Shacklesborough is one of them.

Rising above Baldersdale, its broad summit looks out across miles of open moorland towards Lunedale and the hills beyond. Even today it feels wonderfully remote. The wind moves freely across the heather, curlews call over the rough grass in spring and summer, and there is very little to interrupt the wide views stretching across the upper dale.

Somewhere beyond those hills, close to the road between Nettlepot and Wemmergill, lies a great boulder resting above Sleight's Pasture. It appears strangely out of place, sitting alone in the landscape with no obvious reason for being there.

Long before anyone understood that glaciers had carried huge rocks across the countryside during the Ice Age, people naturally looked for another explanation.

In Lunedale, they found one in Robin Hood.

According to the old tradition, Robin Hood and his merry men were spending time on the summit of Shacklesborough. Like so many tales told about the outlaw, the story begins not with a battle or a robbery, but with a test of strength.

Robin picked up an enormous stone and balanced it on the toes of his right foot. Swinging it backwards and forwards, he gathered enough force to send the great rock soaring out across the valley.

The stone flew through the air, or so the old story tells, for mile after impossible mile.

As it travelled, one fragment broke away and fell near Kelton. The larger piece continued onwards until it crashed into the fields above Lunedale, where it remained for all time.

From that day, people called it Robin Hood's Pennystone.

It is, of course, an impossible feat.

The distance alone makes that clear.

But folklore has never been measured by what is possible. Stories like this were never intended to explain the landscape with scientific accuracy. Instead, they gave memorable answers to questions that people could not otherwise explain.

Why was such a huge stone sitting by itself in a quiet field?

The legend provided an answer that was far more entertaining than any lesson in geology.

Generations passed, but the story stayed with the stone.

Travellers making their way through Lunedale noticed the great boulder resting above the valley. Farmers worked the surrounding fields, shepherds crossed the nearby hills and local people continued referring to it by the same familiar name.

The Pennystone became more than just a landmark. It became part of the local landscape in the same way as old field names, forgotten tracks and place names whose meanings have long since been lost.

At one time, however, the story almost came to an unexpected end.

During the nineteenth century, work began on an enclosure wall nearby and the great boulder was nearly broken up for building stone. According to an account published in 1884, it escaped destruction only because the manor bailiff intervened before the work could begin.

It was a small decision that had lasting consequences.

Had the stone been broken apart, the legend might easily have faded with it. Instead, both survived, allowing later generations to inherit not only the boulder itself but also the story attached to it.

Today, anyone driving through Lunedale is unlikely to notice the Pennystone without already knowing it is there. It lies quietly on private farmland, asking for no attention and revealing little of its past.

Yet its name continues to appear on modern Ordnance Survey maps, quietly preserving a tradition that has become part of the geography of Teesdale.

The outlaw may never have stood on Shacklesborough.

He almost certainly never launched a giant stone across the valley.

But every landscape has its stories, and this one has proved remarkably difficult to leave behind.

The Story Behind the Legend

The earliest detailed account of Robin Hood's Pennystone appeared in the Teesdale Mercury on 19 November 1884, although the newspaper explained that the tradition had already been published in The Lord FitzHugh Magazine. The legend tells how Robin Hood balanced the great stone on his foot before sending it flying from Shacklesborough to Sleight's Pasture, with a fragment falling near Kelton along the way.

The Teesdale Mercury also recorded that the Pennystone was nearly broken up while an enclosure wall was being built nearby. According to the newspaper, it survived only because the manor bailiff stepped in before the work was carried out. The legend was still being repeated in 1929, showing it remained part of local memory.

Could Robin Hood Really Have Done It?

Modern mapping shows the straight-line distance from Shacklesborough to Robin Hood's Pennystone is approximately 3.17 miles (5.1 km).

There is no historical evidence that Robin Hood ever travelled through Teesdale, so the story is best understood as local folklore rather than history. Measuring the distance simply helps show the remarkable scale of the old legend.

A Stone Older Than the Story

Robin Hood's Pennystone is now recognised as a glacial erratic, carried into Lunedale by ice thousands of years ago.

Research by Paul and Barbara Brown records the stone at approximately 4.26 metres long, 3.3 metres wide and 1.53 metres high. They also identified cup markings and carved grooves that may be prehistoric rock art, suggesting the stone attracted attention long before the Robin Hood legend became attached to it.

Where Is Robin Hood's Pennystone?

The Pennystone stands above Sleight's Pasture in Lunedale, west of Barnard Castle, close to the B6276 between Nettlepot and Wemmergill, overlooking Selset Reservoir.

It lies on private farmland and is not within open access land, so we chose not to approach or photograph it directly. Even so, the surrounding landscape still allows visitors to appreciate the setting that inspired one of Teesdale's best-known pieces of folklore.

A Quiet Reflection

Robin Hood almost certainly never kicked a giant stone across Lunedale.

But the Pennystone has carried stories for generations. First came the Ice Age, then perhaps prehistoric people, and much later the legend of England's most famous outlaw. Whether you see it as geology, archaeology or folklore, the stone has become part of Teesdale's story. It is a reminder that some of the oldest landmarks often inspire the greatest tales, and that even a quiet boulder in a Lunedale field can leave a lasting mark on the imagination.