NHER 10907 (Monument record) - Site of Oxfoot Stone

Stone with a matrix of a fossil bivalve, resembling an ox hoofprint, around which local legends have grown.

July 1988. Visited.
Overgrown, in garden of Oxfootstone Farm.
Flat brown boulder about 1m across, imprint is on one edge; many other surface irregularities.
Stated by owner to have been in other locations in parish before being brought to the farm before the 19th century.
E. Rose (NAU), 7 July 1988.

1994. According to (S1) (filed under NHER 20152) the stone is now in the conservatory of the farmhouse under a table!

2008. The legend attached to this stone is as follows:-
A farm at South Lopham in Norfolk takes its name from the Ox-Foot Stone, a large sarsen slab now in the garden of the farmhouse. There is a mark upon it (now rather indistinct) said to be the hoof-print of a fairy cow which regularly appeared at the spot, to be milked by the villagers during a long period of drought. When the dearth ended, the obliging animal stamped its hoof once upon the stone and vanished. But according to another version of the story, the cow was a fairy normal (!) beast which also provided Lopham with milk. Then one evening a villager, who had 'drunk too deeply of the Norfolk nut-brown ale' went down to the meadow armed with a sieve instead of a pail. He milked the cow not only until she was dry, but until he actually drew blood. At this, the poor creature bellowed, and stamped with pain so hard that she left her hoof-mark on a flat stone upon which she had been standing!
D. Gurney (NLA), 17 April 2008