Leper Stone

The Leper Stone (also Newport Stone) is a sarsen megalith near Newport, Essex [1]. Its name derives from the medieval Hospital of St. Mary and St. Leonard, a former leper hospital located nearby [1]. A small depression atop the stone may have served as a receptacle for charitable offerings from travelers [1]. The hospital's lands were sold in the sixteenth century; only fragments of its boundary wall now survive near the stone [1].