Map showing the location of The Leper Stone inEssex.
TheLeper Stone orNewport Stone (grid referenceTL520349) is a largesarsen stone near the village ofNewport, Essex, England.[1] The nameLeper Stone probably derives from the hospital of St. Mary and St. Leonard (fn. 1156?), a nearby hospital forlepers.[2][3] Passers by could have left offerings of alms for the hospital residents in a small depression atop the stone; the hospital grounds were sold in the sixteenth century, and only a portion of the wall near the stone remains.[2][3][4]
Julian Cope, Peter Herring, UKGeocaching along with D.G. Buckley and Ken Newton's paper for the Council of British Archaeology have suggested that the Leper Stone was set vertically in the ground as amegalithicmenhir orstanding stone.[5][6][7] J.D. Hedges report of 1980 also classified it as a standing stone forEnglish Heritage, who describe this type of monument asA stone or boulder which has been deliberately set upright in the ground. Similarly it has been described as amonolith by the Proceedings of theCambridge Antiquarian society.[8]
