Cross (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – TQ 322 812
Archaeology & History
In truly that most unholy of places in England—Westminster, London—there was, in bygone times, a slightly more sacred site which, earlier still, might have been where a standing stone stood…. Might…. But such days are long gone down there. A gathering place of local people in very early times, the Broken Cross was, according to Vallance (1920),
“erected by the Earl of Gloucester in the reign of Henry III (1216-1272), but it did not stand very long. Its site is said to have been ‘the place of the meeting of the Folkmote…near St. Martin’s-le-Grand, about midway between the Northgate of the precinct (of St. Paul’s) and the church of St. Vedast.’ On 5th September 1379, agreements were drawn up for letting the stations about the Broken Cross to five divers persons. The cross was bodily taken down in 1390.”
Yet its name was maintained in street-names for many years later, simply as ‘Broken Cross’. Its position would have been very close to Cheapside.
George Gomme (1880) pointed out that such early folk moots were the development of tribal gatherings grafted from megalithic meetings onto early christian assemblies, pointing out how such assemblies for laws and councils were made at nearby St. Paul’s as early as 973 AD.
References:
- Gomme, George Laurence, Primitive Folk-Moots, Sampson Low: London 1880.
- Gover, J.E.B., Mawer, Allen & Stenton, F.M., The Place-Names of Middlesex, Cambridge University Press 1942.
- Vallance, Aymer, Old Crosses and Lychgates, Batsford: London 1920.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
