34 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1907 
the road, midway between Coleford and Staunton, and is called the 
Long Stone (Plate IV, fig. 1). At one time there was a tradition that 
if this stone were pricked with a pin exactly at midnight it would 
bleed. The present height-of the stone, six feet above the ground, is 
probably much less than its original height. Such stones may have 
been erected as memorials to distinguished persons, or as grave- 
stones, or, as one writer suggested, they may have been Roman 
centurial marks. The woods standing near the stone were planted 
about 1820, previous to which time there must have been open 
meadow-land. The stone was mentioned in a document dated 1584. 
The next-point visited was the famous Buckstone, to reach which 
the Members had to leave the conveyances and climb a somewhat pre- 
cipitous slope, rendered all the more difficult of travelling by reason of 
the dry weather. The journey was accomplished without accident, 
and Mr Richardson proceeded to give a short but interesting account 
of such facts as are known respecting the stone. He reminded his 
hearers that they had passed over the Coal Measures, the Millstone- 
Grit, and Carboniferous Limestone, and were now come to the Old 
Red Sandstone (with its conglomerate-beds) which was said to attain 
a thickness of nearly ten thousand feet in Herefordshire, although he 
suspected this was an over-estimate. The Buckstone is a mass of Old 
Red conglomerate. 
Dr Callaway interposed the remark that, according to Sir 
Archibald Geikie, the Old Red was a lake deposit. He believed 
it to have been formed in several large lakes. 
Mr Richardson remarked that Mr Jukes-Browne appeared to 
favour the idea of bays rather than of lakes, but Mr Upton drew 
attention to the fact that the fish-remains found were all of fresh-water 
origin, which rather pointed to lacustrine conditions. This was 
countered by a remark from Mr Richardson that in Russia marine 
forms had been found mixed with the fresh-water forms. 
Mr Richardson, turning then to the early history of the Forest, 
said that when the Normans came over the Forest was called the 
Forest of Dene. Dene was the Saxon word for a wooded vale or 
valley, and the Forest of Dean was a truthful description of this part of 
Gloucestershire. 
It was mentioned that in 1885 the Buckstone, which up to that 
time had been a rocking-stone, was toppled over by a party of six 
persons from Monmouthshire, but was subsequently restored by the 
Crown, only that it no longer rocked (Plate IV, fig. 2.) Like most 
stones of the sort, certain legends cluster round it. It was said to be 
connected with Druidical worship in pre-historic times. According 
to a pamphlet published for private circulation, dealing with Staunton 
and district, popular opinion links the Buckstone with Druidical 
observances, and the large barrow or mound, fifty yards long and ten 
feet wide on the Meend, has suggested the idea that here may have 
been the tomb of an Arch-Druid. The same writer mentions several 
opinions touching the derivation of the word Buckstone, including 
buck or deer, which animal probably not infrequently sheltered under 
