My article for Spectator: On Sunday, lonely as a cloud, I wandered across a windswept moor in County Durham and passed a solitary sandstone rock with a small, round hollow in the top, an old penny glued to the base of the hollow.
It is called the Butter Stone and it’s where, during the plague in 1665, coins were left in a pool of vinegar by the inhabitants of nearby towns and villages, to be exchanged with farmers for food.
The idea was that the farmer or his customer approached the rock only when the other was at a safe distance. Four modern coins were on the rock, anonymous offerings to the spirits of the moor.
Read more on rationaloptimist.com