Adder Stone                                                  14.04.20

“… perambulating around the parish, near the neglected water meadows of the Walbrook River [to the West of Haggerston, or Agostone as was called in the past to parishioners], I chanced upon a most revealing object; a small stone pierced through with a hole and returned to the vicarage to consult my book of geological facts, where I was furnished with the opinion that water had rounded both the interior and exterior shaping.  Curiously, I also found the stone to be known as an Adder Stone or indeed, a Hag Stone beloved of Druids, Witches and their ilk.

Musing upon these words and the similarity of the two names for that part of the parish, I postulated to myself the area may perhaps have some connection with darkness and the other side. Which might explain the behaviour of the more bawdy and louche members of my flock…”

Diary of The Reverend Henry Turnbull March 1897

attrib: Thomas Bell’s ‘The Turnbull’s of Suffolk’ pub 1949 by David Bell