Four Shire Stone

The Four Shire Stone is a boundary marker placed where the counties of Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire met until 1931 when boundary changes removed Worcestershire. It is an impressive monument some 9 ft. high, built of local Cotswold stone now in need of a little conservation and cleaning. It dates probably from the 18th century and is said to have been the inspiration for J.R.R.Tolkien’s Three Farthing Stone, which marked the centre of The Shire, wherein lived the Hobbits.