Stoodley Pike - ALC00831

This eye-catching monument on the Pennine Way stands nearly 1,400 feet above sea level and some 120 feet high on the crest of a windswept hill. It was erected to commemorate the surrender of Paris to the Allied Armies in March 1814: during the Napoleonic Wars the export of cloth was greatly hampered and there was also a genuine fear of a French invasion. Paid for by public subscription, it was completed in 1815, the year of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. It collapsed in 1854, a fact linked by the superstitious with the outbreak of the Crimean War, but in reality it was struck by lightening. The monument was rebuilt to the design of a local architect, James Green, as an obelisk on a square base. A lightening conductor was added to the structure in 1889..

The weathered inscription reads:

STOODLEY PIKE. A BEACON MONUMENT ERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION. COMMENCED IN 1814 TO COMMEMORATE THE SURRENDER OF PARIS TO THE ALLIES AND FINISHED AFTER THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO WHEN PEACE WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1815.
BY A STRANGE COINCIDENCE THE PIKE FELL ON THE DAY THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR LEFT LONDON BEFORE THE DECLARATION OF WAR WITH RUSSIA IN 1854. WAS REBUILT WHEN PEACE WAS RESTORED IN 1856. RESTORED AND LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR FIXED 1889.

Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

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PHDA - Alice Longstaff Collection

Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

ALC00831.tif