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Musical Stones of Skiddaw

The Musical Stones of Skiddaw, which is a lithophone made of a type of hornfels rock and found in Cumbria, was constructed between 1827 and 1840. This musical instrument has entertained royalty and is now housed at The Keswick Museum and Art Gallery in The Lakes. Inventor Peter Crosthwaite, who was born at Dale End in Thirlmere, was the first to create a stone xylophone. After a brief and unhappy period in his family's wool business he joined the British East India Company in 1735. He became a naval commander, master of the gunboat Otter, which protected the Company's ships against Malay pirates. However, in 1765 he returned to England and did custom duties on the coast, before he returned in 1779 to Keswick.

In 1780 he set up a museum in Keswick. Crosthwaite, who was an eccentric and keen inventor, made a fire escaping machine, a portable bathing machine, a cure for smoking chimneys, a swinging machine for the benefit of health, a roasting machine and a cork-bottomed lifeboat. Unfortunately, he never patented any of his inventions and therefore someone else took the credit for his cork-bottomed lifeboat.

Crosthwaite was walking around the area of Skiddaw on 11th June 1785 when he made a startling discovery - there was music in the rocks. He apparently told people that the first six "musical stones", that he found on that day, were in perfect tune. However, the remaining ten of the set took around six months to find, with Crosthwaite working twelve hours a day to tune, by carefully chipping away at the stone until the correct note rang true. Crosthwaite carved the letter which corresponded to the note in each stone. This resulted in a sort of xylophone, which became known as the "Musical Stones".

Crosthwaite set up mirrors near the windows in his museum, which was at the bottom of Keswick's Market Place, to see approaching carriages. As the carriage neared his museum he would play a basic tune on his Musical Stones and his daughter and an old woman banged a drum, rattled a gong and played a barrel organ. This racket of noise would flood out of his Museum, which was intended to attract the attention of the carriage passengers, who would hopefully pay a shilling to come and look around his Museum.

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