Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/96

 that the chapel should be built on the hill-top, as the unknown persons would not permit it to be erected on the site originally selected. This explains the chapel or church of St Chadde, still standing on a hill so high that one hundred and twenty-four steps were cut to accomplish the ascent, and enable the good people to go to prayers. Such are the outlines of the tradition as dramatically told by Roby in his popular work under the title of "The Goblin Builders." We find no vestige of the tradition in Haines's "Lancashire" or Dr Whitaker's "Whalley." There is a belief and a saying in Rochdale, which Roby connects with his tradition, but which seems to have no natural relation to it, that "in Rochdale strangers prosper and natives fail."

STRETFORD ROAD GREAT STONE. far from the "Great Stone Farm," and lying on the footpath, is the "Plague Stone," whence the farm takes its name. It is an oblong coarse gritstone, foreign to the locality, and quite different from the stone quarried at Collyhurst. Some term it a "travelled stone." It was probably brought hither during the glacial period by iceberg agency, and deposited in a manner similar to the huge boulder now exhibited in Peel Park, Manchester. The Stretford stone measures five feet four inches in length; and the breadth and height are two and three feet respectively. On the upper surface are two cavities, or small rock basins, divided by a ridge, or moulding, the cavities measuring thirteen inches in length, eight inches in breadth, and seven inches in depth. There are, of course, various traditions to account for the origin and use of this curious relic of the