Stonetable Hill

By Mike Pratt

Just above Flat Top House there is an area of land called Stonetable Hill. I had thought that it was so named because of its flatness until I came across a definition for the word “dolmen”. Evidently derived from Breton, “dolmen” translates as “stone table”. A dolmen is a burial chamber consisting of two or more upright stone slabs supporting a capstone or table. Interesting!

While on the subject it is worth noting an old custom that was described in an article on Bishop Wilton in The Hull Times for August 4, 1923:

“….. near by is a hill known as Stone Stable Hill [sic], where, on each Low Sunday (a day called locally Wilton Fine Sunday), football was played. It was the old style of football, when a ball was put down and the aim of the competitors was to get possession of it and run home, the person getting the ball to his home being the winner, and allowed to keep it. According to the old standards, large numbers came, wet or fine, from the whole countryside to take part in the game, which would appear to have been more of a scramble than anything else, except roughness. There were no rules governing the game, and no area was defined, the principal object being to get hold and keep hold. The spectators who took no part in the game were wont to take bottles of whisky with them, and with water from a spring near, “had their fling.” This annual custom died out some 40 years ago, when, as a result of this day, several of the players were fined at Pocklington for breaking down the farmers’ fences.”