Although the symbol itself is a pre-christian one, to most of us it means that dreadfully boring religious crap we’ve had to contend with since childhood. But relics of old stone crosses, which scatter Britain in huge numbers, relate to periods in our history when the xtian ways were damning the ways of our indigenous ancestors – sometimes with frightening furore: burning, hanging and torturing British people for not accepting their screwy ways. The stone crosses which we find today as archaeological relics, tended to be positioned where earlier heathen sites were found – and as a result of this, I thought it important to include such sites on TNA. But these relics took various forms, each relating to the function of the site it meant to supplant or suppress: market crosses, boundary crosses, village crosses, wayside crosses, etc. You’ll find them all here!
Dead easy this one! Go along North Street in Keighley, towards the main church in the middle of town (a St. Andrew’s church, previously St. Pete), by the once-infamous Lord Rodney pub, and the old stone edifice stands outside by the Green. The much better Red Pig public house is across the road from here.
Archaeology & History
Keighley’s Town Cross, 1847 – on a painting by Edwin Riby
For a relatively trivial archaeological site, it’s got a bittova history. Not that this is an old site either! We’re not sure just when this cross was made, but it’s certainly no more than 300 years old. Before standing in its present position outside St. Andrew’s Church, sometime before 1840 it was said to have been a few hundred yards away above the present roundabout on Oakworth Road; and one record tells that it originally came from nearby Utley, a mile to the north. Due to lack of decent records, we’re not sure about its early status as a market cross, nor when it was first erected. Indeed, even the steps on which the cross presently stands are clearly more recent than the ones illustrated on Edwin Riby’s 1847 portrait, reproduced here.
Keighley Cross, on a grey wet day!
It would be good to get a complete history of this archaeological relic but it’s difficult with artifacts such as these; and although gaining access to the church now takes less time and effort than it used to (the vicar here used to be quite unhelpful, but has recently changed his ways – which is good!), it’s only open at certain times of the week.* Friday afternoons seem OK to have a look round. Please – if folk begin having trouble gaining access to the Church once more, let us know on here so we can make complaints about it. The Church is paid for by local tax-payer’s cash, and so needs to be open to all of us. Let’s hope this humble ingredient can be maintained for the good of all in this otherwise regressive social community (Keighley, that is…).
There’s also some very curious folklore to be added here in relation to the market and its cross, but its tale is gonna have to wait…
References:
Gray, Johnnie, Through Airedale, from Goole to Malham, Elliott Stock: London 1891.
Keighley, William, Keighley, Past and Present, R. Aked: Keighley 1858.
* There isn’t even a notice giving information, email or phone numbers, telling you who you can contact if you want to know anything about the history of the church, or visit it — which is quite dreadful considering how much money they get paid by tax-payers for their supposed socio-spiritual duties.
From Keighley town centre, take the main road to Oakworth (B6143) and you’ll see it right by the main roadside, about a mile up on the left-hand side upon a small grassy area in Exley Head, just past the turning up to Wheathead.
Archaeology & History
The upright stone monolith, or cross, which would once have stood here has long since disappeared. All we are left with today is the large cross-base by the roadside: roughly squared, with a large hollow at the centre in which the upright stone cross originally stood erect! In the past, a number of archaeologists and historians have speculated that the Exley Head Cross dated from as early as the 9th up till the 15th century. We may never find out for certain, though it’s likely a post-Domesday medieval relic. It’s position at the roadside gives it the category of being a ‘Wayside Cross’ and it is likely one in a deliberate sequence that were placed along the ancient route from above Keighley, to Oakworth and over the border into Lancashire, near Wycoller and beyond.
Close-up of Exley Head Cross base
Quite why it was placed here is something we may never know: though it is close by an old crossroads and could have replaced an earlier heathen site, but I’ve found no records to indicate this. Its position in the landscape would also have been more impressive before the housing was here, previously giving a wide open view of the Aire Valley below. I’d be grateful for any more info on this site.
References:
Brigg, J.J. & Villy, F., “Three Ancient Crosses near Keighley,” in Bradford Antiquary, New Series 6, 1921.
Pretty easy to find. Go along the Oakworth-Wycoller road, between Keighley and Colne, high up on the moors. When you get to the Water Sheddles Reservoir right by the roadside (y’ can’t miss it), stop! On the other side of the road walk onto the moor, heading for the walling a coupla hundred yards to your east (right). Where the corner edge of the walling ends, your standing stone is right in front of you! If for some reason you can’t see it, wander about – though beware the very boggy ground all round here.
Archaeology & History
This seven-foot tall monolith, leaning to one side thanks to the regularly water-logged peat beneath its feet, stands on the Yorkshire-Lancashire. It is locally known as the Hanging Stone and the Standing Stone, but the name ‘Water Sheddles’ is a bittova puzzle. The place-names authority, A.H. Smith (1961) thinks it may derive from the middle-english word, shadel, being a ‘parting of the waters’ – which is pretty good in terms of its position in the landscape and the boggy situation around it. But ‘sheddle’ was also a well-used local dialect word, though it had several meanings and it’s difficult to say whether any of them would apply to this old stone. Invariably relating to pedlars, swindling or dodgy dealings, it was also used to mean a singer, or someone who rang bells, or a schedule, aswell as to shuffle when walking. Perhaps one or more of these meanings tells of events that might have secretly have been done here by local people, but no records say as such — so for the time being I’ll stick with Mr Smith’s interpretation of the word! Up until the year 1618 it was known simply as just a ‘standing stone’, when it seems that the words “Hanging Stone or Water Sheddles Cross” were thereafter carved on its west-face, as the photo below shows.
Cross carved on top of the stoneThe old stone, with its names carved for all to see
Whether or not this stone is prehistoric has been open to conjecture from various quarter over the years. Is it not just an old boundary stone, erected in early medieval times? Or perhaps a primitive christian relic? Certainly the stone was referred to as “le Waterschedles crosse”, as well as “crucem”, in an early record describing the boundaries of the parish of Whalley, dating from around the 15th century. This has led some historians to think that the monolith we see today is simply a primitive cross. However, sticking crosses on moortops or along old boundaries tended to be a policy which the Church adopted as a means to ‘convert’ or christianize the more ancient heathen sites. It seems probable in this case that an old wooden cross represented the ‘crucem‘ which the monks described in the early Whalley parish records.
Site marked on 1892 map
This monolith likely predates any christian relic that might once have stood nearby; although the carving of a ‘cross’ on the head of the stone may have supplemented the loss of the earlier wooden one. But it seems likely that this carved ‘cross’ was done at a later date than the description of the ‘crucem‘ in the parish records — probably a couple of centuries later, when a boundary dispute was opened, in 1614, about a query on the precise whereabouts of the Yorkshire-Lancashire boundary. After several years, as John Thornhill (1989) wrote,
“the matter was resolved on the grounds that the vast Lancastrian parish of Whalley had claimed territorial jurisdiction as far east as the Hanging Stone, thus the county boundary was fixed on the Watersheddles Cross.”
Water Sheddles stone looking SW
Certainly the stone hasn’t changed in the last hundred years, as we can tell from a description of it by Henry Taylor (1906), who said:
“The remains consist of a rough block of stone, leaning at an angle of about forty-five degrees against a projecting rock. The top end has been shaped into the form of an octagon, on the face of which a raised cross is to be seen. The stone is about six feet long and two feet wide, tapering to eleven inches square at the upper end, and appears once to have stood upright. Some local authorities have cut on it the words, ‘Hanging Stone or Waterscheddles Cross.'”
So is it an authentic prehistoric standing stone? Tis hard to say for certain I’m afraid. It seems probable – but perhaps no more probable than the smaller Great Moss Standing Stone found just a couple of hundred yards away in the heather to the west, on the Lancashire side of the boundary. Tis a lovely bitta moorland though, with a host of lost folktales and forgotten archaeologies…
From Ilkley town, head up the road as if you’re going to White Wells but keep following the moorland road up towards Whetstone Gate and the TV masts on the very tops (you’ll have to walk the last half-mile). Shortly before you get them, you can’t miss this relic by the track-side on your right-hand side.
Archaeology & History
Possibly a christianised monolith, but more likely an original site, put here in an attempt to make local people stop going to the Badger Stone for regular spring gatherings. However, there was until recently what looked like an old monolith on the ground a few yards away, which may have stood upright before the cross was erected. Also on the south-facing side of the cross were four cup-markings, indicating great age. These may also have been added when the cross was erected. (We know this occurred at other sites in the region, e.g., Churn Milk Joan, Midgley Moor, where such cup-marks were added sometime in the 15th or 16th century.) However, thanks to some idiotic halfwits in more recent years going up here and vandalizing Cowper’s Cross, the prehistoric cup-markings that were on this relic have been destroyed. The upright shaft of the cross that’s here now is a re-worked gatepost that replaced the old shaft with its authentic ‘pagan’ carvings.
1920s postcard of the Cross
But it’s had other bits of bad luck through the years. The site was struck by lightning many years back, splitting the stone in half, but has since been rebuilt and stands adjacent to its original position, right next to the old Roman road that crosses Ilkley Moor. Historian Allan Butterfield suggested this site to have originally been an old boundary markstone, christianised many centuries ago. The name ‘Cowper’ derives from the local Ilkley family of Cawper.
Those of you interested in the early christian history of these moors should also have a look at the little-known Black Knoll Cross, less than a mile south of here in the middle of Morton Moor.
Folklore
Folklore relates that markets were held at this old stone cross many years ago. This gives added weight to the idea that the nearby cup-and-ring marked Badger Stone, where markets were probably held around the time of the equinoxes, was the original site for such gatherings.
Note that another site, the Reva Hill Cross, on the eastern side of this moor, has much the same history.
References:
Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Chieveley 2001.
Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
Not hard to locate. From Colne head up to Foulridge via the skipton Road and as you get to the middle of the town ask find the cenotaph just off the main road.
Archaeology & History
The Maiden or Tailor’s Cross, Foulridge
The Maiden or Tailor’s Cross has at least two old traditions attached to the site, which local historians think originate from the Civil War period. The first tells of a Royalist tailor who – sensibly – refused to make uniforms for Oliver Cromwell’s traitorous soldiers; but as a result, the poor tailor was shot by the troops and the remains of his body were placed over the old stone cross as a warning to his fellow workers. If you look closely on the cross you can see a crude carving of what looks like a pair of scissors or shears, and it is this carved symbol which has seemingly given birth to the legend of the tailor. There may, of course, be some truth in the story; but the carved shears is more likely an old Masonic carving – though quite who did it and when isn’t known.
The other legend is the one which apparently gave birth to the title of the Maiden’s Cross. It tells of a certain Margaret Burnard whose husband went into battle (on the side of the treacherous Cromwell), but who agreed before he set out that she should wait for him for to return by the side of the old cross; and this she did each and every day, waiting for her husband, Robert, to come back from the Civil War. But he was one of the many who died in the Battle of Marston Moor. However, Margaret refused to accept his death and returned to the cross each evening to their agreed meeting place. The story goes that Margaret herself herself was eventually killed by Royalist soldiers – and her body was buried at the cross where she had so often waited in vain.
It seems likely that this old cross originally replaced an old ‘heathen’ site in Foulridge. Several such spots were known here, though virtually nothing now remains. But notices of these sites will appear on TNA in the near future.
References:
Oldland, F., The Story of Foulridge, PHCL: Pendle 1990.
