Twin Birch Stone
Weight
105kg / 231lbs
Location
View on what3words - creatures.urgent.pleasing
Original Challenge
Carry the Stone from its seat bwtween the two birch trees to the old wall and back.
Name Origin
The Stone takes its name from the two trees is sits between.
Stones Placement
The Stone was discovered, carried and placed by @b.blackmore10.
History
Overlooking the coastal town of Lynton, Hollerday Hill is home to the remains of an Hollerday Hill Fort, an Iron Age hillfort thought to date back over 2,000 years. Like many hillforts across England, it would have served as a defensive stronghold and settlement, with earthen ramparts and ditches enclosing the hilltop and offering commanding views across the Bristol Channel and Exmoor landscape. Its elevated position made it both strategically valuable and symbolically important within the local tribal territory during the Iron Age.
In the early 20th century, the hill took on a very different role when a large house—Hollerday House was built on the site by publisher Sir George Newnes. However, in 1913, the house was dramatically destroyed by fire in an incident that became one of the defining moments in the hill’s more recent history.
The blaze is widely believed to have been started deliberately by suffragettes as part of the militant campaign for women’s voting rights during that period, a movement closely associated with the Women's Social and Political Union. The destruction of the house left behind only ruins, and no attempt was made to rebuild it.
Today, the site stands as a layered landscape where traces of ancient and modern history coexist—subtle earthworks of the Iron Age fort sit alongside the faint remnants of the burned house, all gradually being reclaimed by the surrounding heath and woodland.
