Megalithic (puddingstone) Marker

I recently came across an interesting article by Gerry Smith in the Autumn 2024 Suffolk Review. He brings to light the theory of Dr Ernest A. Rudge about ‘puddingstones’.

Puddingstones are minor megaliths (surfaced like plum puddings) that crop up in various places. The theory is that they were placed by Neolithic man as ‘way-markers’ to aid the distribution of Flint loads from its sources. In other words they marked the ‘Flint-ways, in much the same as the establishment of the old ‘Salt-ways’.

I have often wondered at the vastness of the ancient flint mining enterprise at ‘Grimes Graves’ in Norfolk. The numbers and depths of the mines must indicate an industrial activity. This was the Neolithic period at the pre-Bronze Age when flint was required for tools including axes, knives, and arrowheads for hunting. In several counties where there is practically no stone, the erratic and prominent great marker stones would have stood out. They were later taken to be pagan objects to mark burial places or the like.

“Grime’s Graves” (Neolithic Flint mines) in Norfolk

Long before the Romans built their roads, there was a network of ancient trackways allowing the movement of the ardent traveller to get to get from place to place. Dr Rudge’s theoretical route for the flint trail led through Suffolk toward Chesham in Buckinghamshire and possibly onward to Stonehenge. Eight puddingstones are known to exist in Suffolk, at Kersey, Drakestone Green, Chelsworth, Bildeston, Cross Green, Hall Farm, Trimworth and Ingham.

NOTES

Puddingstones look rather like a plum pudding; they were conglomerate boulders formed during the Ice Age. These stones could crop up in areas practically devoid of any stone. They may be described as megaliths. The Stone Age is classified into three periods, the Palaeolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic (New Stone Age and Bronze). In the period between 10,000 BC and 2,500 BC was the introduction of farming and domestication.