Tag: crossroads

St James’ Cross, Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire

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Cross (destroyed):  OS Grid reference – TA 0424 2064

Archaeology & History

This long lost wayside cross was described in various local records from 1621 upwards.  In the definitive place-name survey of this area, Kenneth Cameron (1991) told us that this was,

“A medieval cross dedicated to St James, situated at the point where the Thornton and Burnham roads meet… Mr R. Newton comments, “said to have replaced a wayside shrine.  The foundations of the shrine were exposed when the Home Guard dug a defensive trench there at the beginning of the last war.  Foundations destroyed by a bomb.””

References:

  1. Cameron, Kenneth, The Place-Names of Lincolnshire – volume 2, EPNS: Nottingham 1991.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Market Cross, Thornton-le-Dale, North Yorkshire

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Cross:  OS Grid Reference – SE 8340 8304

Getting Here

Dead easy.  Take the A170 road from Pickering to Thornton-le-Dale and as you go into the large village, you’ll hit the old crossroads with the village green.  Here be your cross!

Archaeology & History

Shown on the 1854 OS-map, I first came across a description of this old site in Creaser & Rushton’s (1972) scarce but lovely little work on the history of the old village here, where they told that,

“A cross has stood here since John de Eston in 1281 had the grant of a Tuesday market and two yearly fairs.  It was repaired in 1820.  Every year, the Abbot of Whitby unloaded 1500 red and 1500 white herrings here from his packhorse ponies for transhipment to the Master of St. Leonard’s Hospital at York.”

Or at least, that’s what he got folk to write down in the record-books!  Close by were the old village stocks of the village (whose usage should be resurrected in many parts of this country nowadays).

References:

  1. Creaser, A. & Rushton, J.H., A Guide and History of Thornton-le-Dale, Pickering, Yorkshire, E. Dewing: Pickering 1972.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian