Jenny Bradley stone

My mind was piqued by the following sentence in a 1906 article in the Whitby Gazette by that prolific writer on all North Yorkshire matters, John Fairfax-Blakeborough (1883-1976)¹FAIRFAX BLAKEBOROUGH, J. The Story Of The Cleveland Hills. | Whitby Gazette | Friday 05 October 1906 | British Newspaper Archive. [online] Available at: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19061005/081/0003 [Accessed 27 Apr. 2022].:

A mile or so from the Nab is to be seen, by the side of the road, a stone which, to the traveller unversed in local legend, has no meaning. The people in Bransdale, however, will tell you it was erected in memory of a poor woman and her child who perished in a snow drift here many years ago.

The Nab referred to is Turkey Nab and I immediately associated the story with the Jenny Bradley stone, which marks the meeting of the parishes of Bransdale, Farndale West, Ingleby Greenhow and Westerdale²NYMNPA HER No: 3550/8183.

I have longed pondered just who Jenny Bradley was. But …

Fairfax-Blakeborough says the stone is “a mile or so” distant from Turkey Nab. The Jenny Bradley stone is about 2½ miles.

Closer to the Nab, about 1¼ miles, is the Hand Stone, an 18th-century way-marker³NYMNPA HER No: 5743. Perhaps that is a more likely contender for the memorial to the woman and child who died on the moors in the snow.

The smaller stone in the photo is a medieval wayside cross⁴NYMNPA HER No: 3938.

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  FAIRFAX BLAKEBOROUGH, J. The Story Of The Cleveland Hills. | Whitby Gazette | Friday 05 October 1906 | British Newspaper Archive. [online] Available at: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19061005/081/0003 [Accessed 27 Apr. 2022].
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  NYMNPA HER No: 3550/8183
• 3
  NYMNPA HER No: 5743
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  NYMNPA HER No: 3938