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Furious English villagers force council climbdown over Satan's stone booty

Beelzebub's boot firmly planted in middle of hamlet's High Street

Outraged villagers in Bucks have forced the local council to ditch plans to shift a millennia-old boulder they believe was originally part of the Devil’s foot.

The Soulbury Boot is believed to have been cut off from Satan’s lower quarters in an ancient fight between Lucifer and the locals in Chapel Hill, Soulbury. It is also rumoured to roll down the street when the local Church’s bells chime at midnight.

Night-time perambulations apart, the problem is said boulder is usually slap in the middle of the village's main street, and has been brought to the local council’s attention after a motorist drove into it.

According to the Leighton Buzzard Observer, Transport for Bucks’ Matt Whincup wrote to the parish council to say the motorist had filed a compensation claim.

As a result, “This puts TfB in a very difficult position as I understand the stone has been in place at the junction for a very long time. Technically the stone is an obstruction in the public highway according to the Highways Act 1980 and now that an incident has been brought to our attention we are obliged to take action.”

Whinchup suggested they should move it away from the crossroads to the village green.

However, parish councillor Alan Stevens warned the council that villagers would be outraged if moves were made to roll away the stone: “It’s where it is and that’s all there is to it. It’s part of Soulbury and I think that’s the general feeling.”

Local history buff Chris Bryant added the boulder predates the village by around 250 million years, he reckoned, making it a very long-lived rock indeed. Although he didn’t say how this squared with the villagers' belief it is actually Beelzebub’s booty.

Others took to social media and pledged to chain themselves to the rock if the council refused to let it be.

The council has now given in to the villagers before they went into full pitchforks-and-torches mode, the BBC reports, and pledged to look at ways to improve traffic flow around the stone. In the meantime, the council has surrounded the boot with traffic cones, either in a bid to protect the stone from confused motorists, or keep local boozed-up students amused.

Perhaps they could follow the example of villagers in Surrey and paint enormous penises on the road around the stone?

This could be a perfect commission for not quite so young British artist Tracey Emin. She has form with penis paintings, though we’re not quite sure she’d find the British-based Soulbury Boot an attractive subject, given she’s currently married to a large boulder in France. We’d hate to be the ones to drag that marriage onto the rocks. ®

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