The still-sumptuous ruins of a Cistercian abbey, lovely in decay, snuggle contentedly in a lush valley surrounded by the majestic moorlands of Staffordshire, the seven centuries old weather-beaten red sandstone walls still keeping some of the myriad clues to a hoary riddle.
    Half a mile to the south, and a couple of hundred feet higher, a public house now known as The Raddle but, intriguingly, displaying a sign showing a stonemason chiselling away at a rock, watches over this valley. In the bar room of this public house, above the fireplace, a brass square and compass has pride of place while in another room a master stonemason has carved the Craft symbol onto a lintel. Locals, many still engaged in the quarrying of both red and white Hollington stone used for centuries for the construction of churches and stately homes, are protectively proud of the abbey site. They are also, in the main, aware that the heart of King John was buried here after the Abbot of Croxden ministered to him on his deathbed. The monks, according to local tradition, treasured the somewhat less than sacred heart in an urn and, before Henry VIII’s men set about the sacking of the site during the Dissolution, they hid the vessel . . . unearthed, it is believed, only recently.
    A crusader knight, Bertram de Verdon, brought these white monks to the lush site from Normandy in 1176 but no-one has ever been able to give a definitive answer as to why this area of North Staffordshire was so attractive to the Cistercian Order. Was it because the moorlands resembled (and to some may still resemble) an otherworldly desert? The Cistercians are believed to have preferred hard, untamed, lonely territory : something ripe for transformation. Or was it because much of the area was once covered in that dense forest which the Cistercians were so expert in clearing? Which came first – the white-robed monks, or law and order? Only a few miles due north, the Earl of Chester brought the Cistercians of Pulton to the abbey of Dieulacres in about 1214; to the west Hulton Abbey (Cistercians again) was erected in 1223 and, a mile or two on, the Knights Templar, following a Cistercian Rule, built a preceptory at Keele.
    This enigmatic area throws up many questions, and the mystery – inextricably entwined with Masonry – is deepened by one Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) and his employee, Dr Robert Plot, who supervised the running of the Musaeum Ashmoleanum in Oxford.
    Today there are schools of thought for and against the Craft having its foundations firmly rooted in freestone mason’s lodges, but in 1686 Plot’s Natural History of Staffordshire tells us of the “Society of Free-masons” being “of greater request in the moorlands of Staffordshire than anywhere else.” Among other things the lodges and ‘chapters’ advised on materials for building. Plot refers to the excellent freestone to be found in the moorlands. Intriguingly, he says of these masons in Chapter VIII.86, “for if any man appear altogether unknown that can show any of these [masonic] signes to a Fellow of the Society, whom they otherwise call an accepted mason, he is obliged presently to come to him”.
    Ashmole, a Staffordshire man, was an accepted mason (initiated during the Civil War at Warrington) and a Windsor Herald who visited these moors in April 1663, taking notes on monuments, inscriptions and coats of arms in nearby churches and houses. While in the vicinity he was visited by his first wife’s sister Dorothy Mainwaring. This was recorded in the Diary of the Rev. Henry Newcombe (1627-95) (ed. T. Heywood, Chatham Society vol XVIII,1849, p.173). He calls Ashmole “Brother” but this may simply be because he had married Ashmole’s first wife’s sister Elizabeth. It seems quite possible that this Newcombe was a brother accepted mason. From 24 September 1647, Newcombe (a nonconformist minister and Royalist) was schoolmaster and preacher just over the Staffordshire and Cheshire border at Congleton, whence he obtained a perpetual curacy at Goostrey, thanks to to Col. Henry Mainwaring (initiated with Ashmole in 1646). The Mainwarings were patrons of Goostrey (which held its advowson from Dieulacres).
    Ashmole knew this area well and may have taken refreshment at The Raddle, should it have been there in those times. The Raddle is itself a riddle. Originally a one-roomed public house it has now been greatly extended and is frequented by people from far and near. Records do not show when it was first used as an inn but it was formerly called the Mason’s Arms, though the name has not been used in living memory. It is situated on Raddle Lane, leading to a quarry where the red stone is hewn (the verb “to raddle” means to make red). And did, indeed, masons other than stonemasons ever meet at this hostelry? The two squares and compasses might suggest that they did, although Lane’s Masonic Records suggest the nearest and oldest-recorded lodges to Hollington are Cheadle (St. Giles Lodge No 1587 consecrated in 1876 at the Royal Oak Hotel) and at Uttoxeter (Forester’s Lodge originally No. 670, consecrated in 1838). Records for the Staffordshire of the 18th century are very poor and earlier are sadly non-existent. It may be that a hypothetical lodge operating in or near Hollington simply did not recognise Grand Lodge and disdained to send records – or was purely operative and had never held acceptations of gentlemen such as Ashmole.
    However, as Alice in Wonderland said, things get curiouser and curiouser and, like her, we should endeavour to find answers - not least from one of the greatest Master Masons of the 14th century who not only worked at Croxden but on the nave of Westminster Abbey, the nave and transept of Canterbury Cathedral, and the Bloody Tower, and who was later given the Freedom of the City of London. And we must look at why an ancient cross was hidden away, unearthed and hidden away again; take a closer look at a mystery surrounding the urn containing King John’s heart and we must delve into the life of times and a man named Colin…

I should like to express my thanks to Tobias Churton for his help in preparing this story.