| The Rudston Monolith is thought to be the tallest single standing stone in Britain. The portion of the stone visible above the ground is 26 feet high, the buried portion is of unknown length but is possibly around 19 feet. The stone may weigh between 30-45 tons. Its purpose is unknown, there have been several ideas. The Christian fraternity seem to believe that erecting tall stones is a custom derived from Joshua, who in turn took it from a temple dedicated to Baal. This was later reflected in the building of tall steeples on Christian places of worship. However this stone, and others like it, was erected long before Christianity came to Britain. It was probably erected in the late neolithic period and may have been transported from the Cleveland Hills, how it was moved is a matter for conjecture. It is conceivable that it may have been brought much of the way by water as the nearby landscape was probably under water for long periods of time. The final stretch could have been accomplished by the use of rollers made from tree trunks. No-one knows for sure how all this was accomplished or exactly why it was done and why it was at Rudston. It clearly must have been an important site long before the church was built. There is a further smaller standing stone in the corner of the churchyard (TA 09826 67770), this stands under a tree among broken stone coffins, all apparently discarded. I wonder if this its original position or has it been re-erected here at some point in the past? Recently there has been a suggestion made that marks seen on the face of the main stone are in fact dinosaur footprints. These occur relatively frequently in the rocks along the Yorkshire coast so it is not as improbable as it may sound. The marks can be seen in the top photograph and I have retaken the shot and it is shown below, along with my highlighting of the possible footprints. The top mark may show the heel of a foot and three toes, the middle mark seems to be just the heel while the lower one is too distorted to make anything out. I'll leave it to your judgment to decide if they are footprints. If you think they are the question then arises, was this stone chosen because of the footprints or are they just coincidental? | 
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