The Great Bow (Mr. H. C. Haldane holding Little John's bow outside Cannon Hall, Yorkshire)
The Historians agree that until the middle of the 18th Century Little Johns bow with some arrows and some chain armour were hanging in Hathersage Church together with a green cap suspended by a chain.
To understand what happened to these treasures we need to follow the fortunes of the family of the squire of Hathersage, Benjamin Ashton. When he died in 1725, his estate passed to his sister Christiana Spencer (she had married William Spencer of Canon Hall near Barnsley in 1715). William and Christiana had three children John, Christiana and Ann.
Either William Spencer, or his son John, (who succeeded his father in 1756 and died 1775), caused Little John's great bow and armour to be removed from Hathersage Church to Cannon Hall about the middle of the 18th Century. The alleged reason for removal was safe keeping owing to the then 'parlous' condition of the Church, of which the roof was leaking and weeds growing in the aisle. John's sister Ann Spencer married Walter Stanhope who assumed the name Spencer-Stanhope and the bow remained at Cannon Hall in the possession of the Spencer-Stanhope family. Even when the house was acquired by Barnsley Corporation in 1951, the bow remained on loan for several years at Cannon Hall. Eventually Mr J. Spencer-Stanhope left the bow to his daughter, Elizabeth Fraser (she married Lt. Corn. later rear Admiral, the Hon George Fraser in 1920). Their son Mr Simon Fraser had the bow at his home in Scotland in 1980.
It is said that in 1715 a Colonel Naylor strung the bow and shot a deer with it. The Bow was made of spliced yew, 79 inches long tipped with horn, weighing 2 Ib. and requiring a pull of 160 Ibs to draw it.
So of the three children of William and Christiana Spencer, John died unmarried. Ann, as we have seen married Walter Stanhope, and Christiana married Captain William Shuttleworth in 1748. Thus Christiana Shuttteworth as she became, interited the Hathersage estates. We have seen what the Spencer-Stanhopes did with the bow at Cannon Hall, now we must record how the Shuttleworths at Hathersage discovered the Gigantic thigh bone.
The above was extracted from 'Let These Stones Live' by Martin F.H. Hulbert, with the kind permission of St. Michael and All Angels church, Hathersage.