Take Root with The Sunnywood Project
At the Ellen Strange memorial and cairn, Holcombe Moor, July 2023
The Ellen Strange cairn was marked on very first Ordnance Survey map of the area in 1844 - 47, where it was labelled simply as ‘Ellen Strange’. Marking the area where Ellen was brutally beaten and murdered back in 1761, the cairn, and more recently added carved stone, is widely acknowledged as the oldest surviving memorial for a victim of domestic abuse. The cairn is situated north west of the nearby Bull Hill and Pilgrims Cross and is a familiar landmark for local hikers and trail runners. Only fragments of the history has been thoroughly documented, and the full story is still shrouded in doubt and mystery. The haunting presence of the carved stone serves as a reminder that not all of what is seen, is known.
Runners and walkers with The Sunnywood Project joined me at Ellen Strange to use meditative mark-making as a way to slow down the common ritual of adding a stone to the cairn, gaining an intimate and engaged account of the specifics of each chosen stone, before they were placed onto the co-created landmark. Adding our own accounts to the ongoing story.
If you’re interested in reading more about Ellen Strange, check out this pamphlet written by John Simpson, which was re-printed by the Helmshore Local History Society.
