Ruth's Blog

Outside Louth Museum is an enormous rock, known as the Blue Stone. Originating from the Whin Sill in north-eastern England, it must have been transported by an ice-age glacier. In 1834 Bayley wrote in his book Notices of Louth:

“In the yard of the Blue Stone printing office in Mercer Row is a large blue stone. It was for ages a slander post at the corner of Mercer Row and afterwards the sign of the Blue Stone Inn. From the street it was removed by the late Mr Fotherby to the back of his premises at considerable expense”.

The Blue Stone Inn was a substantial coaching inn which stretched along Upgate from Mercer Row to Kidgate (not to be confused with the later Blue Stone Tavern on the other side of Upgate). The premises became Fotherby’s printing office in 1822, and were demolished in 1912 when Upgate was widened.