Aiggin Stone

Aiggin stone located on the border of Yorkshire with Lancashire.

The stone is a 2.14m long stone pillar on the county boundary between Sowerby Bridge and Littleborough, above the Ryburn reservoir, on Blackstone Edge Moor.

A plaque says the Aiggin Stone is a Medieval waymarker that is 600 years old. It may have been a way-marker and is situated near the cobbled pre-packhorse route over Blackstone Edge that some say is an old Roman road.

The name is said to have derived from the French aiguille, a needle, or aigle, an eagle.

It was first 'discovered' lying prone alongside a pile of stones, with a large cross and the letters I and T incised into it. This irregular block of gritstone, about 25cm thick and tapering from 76cm to 61cm, was re-erected in 1933.

A pointed cairn stands beside the waymarker, no doubt being added to over the years by walkers traversing the high-level ancient route between Littleborough and Ripponden, on the windswept Pennine moors.