ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD

FINAL postscript to our Earlestown obelisk theme of last week comes from David H. Pill of Park Road North, Newton-le-Willows.

The subject arose when a reader asked whether the obelisk - a large finger of stone pointing up majestically from the market square - had been placed there to commemorate the Wood Pit Disaster.

It turns out that this isn't so. The disaster occurred ages after the obelisk (known locally as The Millystone) was erected, initially close to St Peter's Church as a replacement for Newton's mediaeval market cross.

But David Pill explains how the misunderstanding may have arisen.

"The confusion with the Wood Pit story," he says, "is perhaps due to there being a scaled-down version of the obelisk in the churchyard of Newton's United Reformed Church which is a memorial to the pit's owner, Richard Evans."

Of the Millystone, he adds: "That it is in the shape of an obelisk is probably because Thomas Legh, the then Lord of the Manor, had travelled in Egypt and was keen on all things Egyptian."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.