YARN-MARKET CROSS]
[Illustration: 178, 179. OAKHAM, RUTLAND
BUTTER CROSS, WITH DETAIL OF THE INTERIOR]
[Illustration: 180, 181. WYMONDHAM, NORFOLK
MARKET CROSS, WITH DETAIL OF THE GROUND-FLOOR STOREY]
[Illustration: 182. BINGLEY, W.R. YORKSHIRE
MARKET CROSS]
[Illustration: 183. LYMM, CHESHIRE
MARKET CROSS]
[Illustration: 184. NETHER STOWEY, SOMERSETSHIRE
MARKET CROSS]
[Illustration: 185. MILVERTON, SOMERSETSHIRE
MARKET CROSS]
[Illustration: 186. NOTTINGHAM
THE MALT CROSS]
At Leicester, the last remains of the ancient cross were cleared away
in 1569. Meanwhile, a successor to it had been built in 1557. This new
Market Cross (Fig. 12) was octagonal on plan, having open arches on
pillars and a cupola roof. In its turn it was demolished between 1769
and 1773.
At Ipswich, a preaching cross, erected in 1510 by Edmund Daundy,
Bailiff of the town, and said to be a near relative of Cardinal
Wolsey, is believed to have occupied the same spot on the Cornhill,
where subsequently, in 1628, the market cross was built (Figs.
169-172). The latter was projected, at least, as early as 1610, when
Benjamin Osborne promised £50, which, by will dated June 1619, he
bequeathed toward the building. But it was not until 1628 that the
Corporation managed to obtain any payment from his executors, and
then the sum available from his estate was £6 short of the proper
amount. The figures in the inscription, recording the benefaction
upon a shield in one of the spandrels, were thereupon altered from
£50 to £44 (Fig. 172). The structure, 28 ft. in diameter, comprised
eight stone columns, supporting elliptical arches of wood, with an
embattled parapet above a cornice, elaborately carved with scrollwork
and grotesques. Five masks from the old wood carving, together with
the shield inscribed as above mentioned, are yet preserved in the
Ipswich Museum. The roof, an ogee-shaped cupola, covered with lead,
was framed into a centre post, carried on cross-beams just above the
level of the eaves. The upper end of the post ran up through the
middle of the roof in the form of a square terminal of four stages,
the lowest part being carved with a group of figures supporting a
gilt ball, like an orb, with a cross on the top. On the occasion of
the Proclamation of King Charles II., on 10th May 1660, "the cross was
ordered to be beautified--painted or rather emblazoned" with the arms
of local celebrities. The arms included those of Ipswich borough and
of the families of Daundy, Bloss, Long, and Sparrowe, as well as two
tradesmen's marks, C. A., and B. K. M. The carved faces in the museum
yet retain their flesh tints. In April 1694 the Corporation ordered
that a new statue of Justice should be erected upon the summit of
the cross. In 1723 the Corporation voted thanks to Mr Francis Nugent
(who represented Ipswich in three Parliaments) for his present of a
statue of Justice, which was brought from his seat at Dallinghoe.
This, an allegorical figure, holding the scales, is of stone, painted
brown, and also is preserved in Ipswich Museum. A sketch and plan by
Sir James Thornhill (Fig. 169), in May 1711, shows that the cross at
that time stood surrounded by a balustrade. The cross was pulled down
bodily at the beginning of January 1812, by order of a Great Court
previously held. An aquatint, from a contemporary drawing by George
Frost, was published in the same year (Fig. 171).
The Market Cross at Mildenhall, Suffolk (Fig. 13), with its timber
posts and lead-covered roof, dates from the fifteenth century.
[Illustration: 187. BUNGAY, SUFFOLK
MARKET CROSS]
[Illustration: 188. SWAFFHAM, NORFOLK
MARKET CROSS]
[Illustration: 189. WOODSTOCK, OXFORDSHIRE
MARKET CROSS]
[Illustration: 190. WAKEFIELD, W.R. YORKSHIRE
MARKET CROSS]
The old Butter Cross at Oakham (Fig. 178) recalls that at Mildenhall,
than which, however, it is probably later by a century or more. The
Oakham cross is octagonal on plan, the eight oak posts which support
the roof resting on blocks of stone for bases. In the centre is
a solid stone pier, encircled by seats for the market women. The
interior construction of the roof is a fine example of carpentry (Fig.
179).
At Oundle, Northamptonshire, stood a market cross, very like the
last-named, octagonal on plan, with an eight-sided pyramidal roof,
covered with Colly Weston slates, and supported by eight wooden posts
(Fig. 168). The interior comprised a central shaft, with a square
socket, bearing the date 1591, and mounted on two octagonal steps
of stone, having overhanging drips. The cross, not mentioned by
Bridges, has long since been demolished. The view is from an undated
lithograph, initialled J. S.
The Market Cross at Wymondham, Norfolk (Figs. 180, 181), with its
quaint timber-framed upper storey, approached by an external stair,
dates from 1617. The face of the braces between the piers of the open
ground-storey are carved with tops, spindles, spoons, and such like
wooden ware, for the abundant manufacture of which the town had long
been famous.
At Dunster, Somersetshire, the Yarn-Market Cross, as it is called, is
octagonal on plan, with an immense span of roof relieved by dormers
(Fig. 177). "The arrangement of the timbers, extending radially from
the centre of the cross, is somewhat remarkable," writes Alex. Gordon.
This cross was built about the year 1600. The weather-vane at the
summit of the lantern bears the date 1647.
The Market Cross, or Butter Cross, at Witney, Oxfordshire (Fig. 14),
was built, according to Joseph Skelton, by William Blake, of Coggs,
in 1683. Lavish renovation has now robbed it of much of its proper
charm, but the planning of the roof, with its gables facing four ways,
constitutes an entirely delightful composition.
At Milverton, Somersetshire, the Market Cross, commonly called Fair
Cross, was standing, and is referred to in an indenture dated March
1715 (Fig. 185). The vane bore the date 1706. Eight cylindrical
columns of stone, surrounding the base and shaft of a medieval cross,
sustained the shelter, above which was an upper chamber, used for
storage only, access thereto being obtained by means of a ladder
through the window opening in one of the sides. The chamber was
covered with a slate-healed pyramid of eight cants. The cross, which,
strangely enough, was in private ownership, was demolished by the
proprietor himself in or about 1850.
The Market Cross at Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, was erected about
1750 on the site of an earlier cross, of which nothing but a few
fragments of stone from the base had survived. The eighteenth-century
structure was octagonal on plan, eight cylindrical columns supporting
the eight-canted pyramidal roof, from the top of which rose a square
turret, with a clock in the lower part, and a bell in the open
bell-cote at the top (Fig. 184). Having been allowed to fall into
dilapidation, the whole cross was swept away by the lord of the manor
about 1860.
At Castle Combe, Wiltshire, the Market Cross is apparently another
instance where the shelter was built up over an already existing
stone cross (Figs. 173, 176). The latter has a bold, square socket,
sculptured with late-Gothic tracery ornament. The shelter seems to be
sixteenth-century work. Its pyramidal roof, supported on four stone
piers, had lost the original summit of the cross-shaft before Buckler
made his drawing of the north-west view of the cross. It was then
surmounted by a sundial of the seventeenth or eighteenth century.
Later restoration, however, has substituted a quasi-Gothic pinnacle.
At Lymm, Cheshire, though no market is now held there, the old Market
Cross remains, a quaint and unusual structure, standing on the top
of a boulder, with steps partly hewn out of the natural rock (Fig.
183). The cross is built of stone, and consists of a massive central
pier, square on plan, between four smaller piers, likewise square,
supporting the roof at the corners. The roof, cross-ridged, has
pediments facing four ways, and surmounted each by a substantial
hip-knob. On the faces of the pediments are sundials. From the centre
of the roof rises a lofty weathercock with a wrought-iron frame.
The Malt Cross at Nottingham stood opposite the lower end of Sheep
Lane, and is said to have been erected in 1714, although the old
vane at the summit bore the date 1686. The structure, hexagonal on
plan, and roofed with a cupola supported on Doric columns, was raised
upon a three-foot high platform of four steps (Fig. 186). The boss
surmounting the cupola had a sundial on each of its six sides. The
Malt Cross was taken down, and the materials were sold by public
auction in October 1804.
As the seventeenth century advanced the market cross exhibited more
and more marked divergence from the original architectural forms,
including the abandonment of the cross on the summit, and the
adoption, in many instances, of a sundial in place of the cross. This
tendency only increased in the eighteenth century. Instances of it
are afforded by the market crosses--rectangular on plan--at Woodstock
(Fig. 189) and Wakefield (Fig. 190). Other eighteenth-century market
crosses, _e.g._, those of Bungay (1789) (Fig. 187) and Swaffham (1783)
(Fig. 188), might almost be mistaken in appearance for bandstands,
but from the fact that, aloft upon their lead-covered domes, the
allegorical figure of Justice, emphasising the duty of fair dealing,
continues to proclaim their purpose of open-air shelters for the
transaction of business.
VII. UNCLASSIFIED VARIETIES
It is not easy to devise a system for the classification of crosses,
which shall, without loss of precision, be both exhaustive enough and
comprehensive enough to embrace every possible variety. There remain,
then, a few anomalous instances which seem not to admit of inclusion
in any of the categories already considered.
The first to note is Doncaster cross (Fig. 191), of which an engraving
was published in _Vetusta Monumenta_, July 1753, from an old painting,
formerly the property of Lord Fairfax, who sold it in 1672 to
Alderman Thoresby, of Leeds. An ancient manuscript, accompanying the
painting, recorded all that was known of the history of the cross.
The latter bore on the shaft, at about a third of its height up from
the bottom, an inscription in Norman French: "This is the cross of
Ote de Tilli, on whose soul God have mercy. Amen." The said Ote de
Tilli was seneschal of the Earl of Conisborough, and was a witness
of the charter of foundation of Kirkstall Abbey in 1152. His name
occurs in other charters of King Stephen's reign, and also of others
in the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I. The cross stood at the
south end of the town of Doncaster, on the London road. The shaft
was 18 ft. high, and consisted of a large central cylinder with four
engaged cylindrical shafts, having a total circumference of 11 ft.
7 in. It stood upon five circular steps, resting upon a hexagonal
base or plinth. On the summit of the stone cross there formerly rose
five slender iron crosses, the central one higher than the rest; but
in 1644 the monument was defaced by the troops under the Earl of
Manchester, losing its iron crosses. To make up the deficiency the
mayor, in 1678, erected four dials, a ball, and vane on the top of the
cross. Of not dissimilar plan is the stump of a shaft at Elstow (Fig.
192), in Bedfordshire. Again, there is a tall pillar of clustered
columns in three stages at Aldborough (Fig. 193). All three examples
appear to date from the thirteenth century.
[Illustration: 191. DONCASTER, W.R. YORKSHIRE]
[Illustration: 192. ELSTOW, BEDFORDSHIRE
CROSS NEAR THE CHURCH]
[Illustration: 193. ALDBOROUGH, E.R. YORKSHIRE
VILLAGE CROSS]
[Illustration: 194, 195. MITTON, W.R. YORKSHIRE
HEAD OF CROSS IN THE CHURCHYARD, SHOWING OBVERSE AND REVERSE FACES]
At Chester, where Watergate Street ends and Eastgate Street begins,
and where, at the point of junction, Bridge Street leads off at a
right angle southward to the Dee Bridge, there stood the High Cross
on a hexagonal platform or step outside the entrance to the Pentice,
which itself extended the whole length of the south side of St
Peter's Church. The design of this cross was so abnormal that one
is at a loss to place it under any known classification. A plain
cylindrical column supported an immense and lofty superstructure,
exceeding the height of shaft and socket put together, and consisting
of a double-storeyed lantern, with two tiers of niches for statues
surrounding it. The whole was surmounted by an orb and cross, but the
drawing by Randle Holme the third, among the Harleian manuscripts at
the British Museum (Fig. 24), gives two alternative details to finish
off the summit, viz., a crucifix, or a crowned shield of the royal
arms. The High Cross was newly gilded in 1529. It was overthrown and
defaced by the Puritans in 1646, or, according to another account,
in 1648. "In 1804 the remains were discovered buried in the porch of
St Peter's Church, and were taken to Netherleigh House, and there
used to form a kind of ornamental rockwork in the gardens." The late
Archdeacon Barber, writing in 1910, says that in the Grosvenor Museum
at Chester there is a plain stone block, which, though without any
of the richly sculptured ornament depicted by Holme, purports to be
the head of the ancient cross, while "the shaft is said to be in the
grounds of Plas Newydd, at Llangollen."
[Illustration: 196. RIPLEY, W.R. YORKSHIRE
BASE IN THE CHURCHYARD]
There is, again, a certain type of cross which cannot exactly be
classified under any of the previously described varieties. The type
in question, as exemplified at Alphington (Fig. 199) and at St Loye's,
Wonford, near Exeter (Fig. 198), appears to be peculiar to Devonshire.
At first sight the cross looks much like a variety of monolith, but
the cross-head is in fact worked in a separate block of stone. The
shortness of the arms, as compared with the height of the upper limb,
is striking. Another feature is a small niche or hollow sunk in the
face of the cross at the point of intersection. For the rest, the
socket does not differ at all from many examples occurring in the
shaft-on-steps group.
The cross-head at Mitton, Yorkshire (Figs. 194, 195), is peculiar
inasmuch as the crucifixion is sculptured on both faces, but in
totally different fashions. That on the west face has the arms
stretched horizontally, within a sexfoil frame, and might well be
of the thirteenth century. Whereas the sculpture on the east face,
though much more weatherworn, is of a style that could not have been
designed before the late-fourteenth, or perhaps even the fifteenth
century. The arms of the Christ in this instance are drawn upwards
in an unusually oblique direction. It is impossible that these two
representations could have been executed at one and the same date. The
circular outline of the head, too, is peculiar, and suggestive rather
of a gable-cross than of a standing cross. Possibly the west face only
was sculptured in the first instance, for a gable-cross, the sculpture
on the east face being added later in order to adapt the stone for
the head of a churchyard cross. Anyhow, since Buckler's drawings were
made, the head has been mounted on a modern shaft and pedestal.
[Illustration: 197. BISLEY, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
MONUMENT IN THE CHURCHYARD]
A very strange socket, comprising two stages, both cylindrical with a
slight batter, stands to the north of the church in the churchyard at
Ripley, Yorkshire (Fig. 196). The topmost stage is about 2 ft. 3½
in. high, and the diameter of its upper bed is 2 ft. 9 in. It has had
sunk into it, from the shaft of a cross, a mortise 8½ in. deep by
18 in. by 10 in. The bottom stage is 2 ft. high by about 4 ft. 8 in.,
the diameter of its upper bed, which varies from 6 to 7½ in. wider
all round than the foot of the upper stage. A most peculiar feature is
the series of eight cavities averaging 6 in. deep and from 14 to 17
in. high, by 7 to 10½ in. wide at the top. It cannot be that these
cavities were receptacles for offerings, for eight of them would be
largely in excess of any reasonable requirements of alms-gathering. It
has been called a "weeping cross" on the supposition that the hollows
were meant for penitents to kneel in. But this again cannot be, for
the spaces available are not nearly large enough for such a purpose.
It may be that the bottom stage of the Ripley cross is, after all,
nothing else than the inverted bowl of a font, and the hollows
surrounding it niches for statuary. The problem, however, is one which
has not hitherto been satisfactorily explained.
[Illustration: 198. ST LOYE'S, WONFORD,
DEVONSHIRE]
At Bisley, Gloucestershire, in the west end of the churchyard, stands
a singular structure of stone, of early-thirteenth-century work
(Fig. 197). Circular on plan at the foot and hexagonal above, it
now measures about 12 ft. high, the original cross or finial at the
apex having disappeared. This monument has been variously described
as a cross, a well-head, or a bone-house. Probably it is rather a
combination between a cross (for with such it must almost certainly
have been crowned) and a lantern for the "poor souls' light." The
trefoil-headed openings in each cant seem designed expressly for
emitting the light of a lamp burning within, while the dormer-like
hoods of the said openings would shelter the flame from wind and rain.
Such lantern pillars are known to have been in use in the Middle Ages,
though they have very rarely survived to our own times. There exists,
however, a fine example of late-fourteenth or early-fifteenth century
work, standing outside the north-east part of the Dom at Regensburg,
in Bavaria.
[Illustration: 199. ALPHINGTON, DEVONSHIRE]
VIII. LYCHGATES
Lychgates are so named from the old Anglo-Saxon word _lich_, or German
_leiche_, meaning corpse, because they stood at the entrance of the
churchyard, where the bearers of the dead might deposit their burden,
and rest awhile before passing through, and into the church for the
solemn funeral rites. Some lychgates are actually provided with a long
flat slab for this very purpose, as is the case, for instance, at
Ashprington and Atherington, both in Devonshire, and at Chiddingfold,
Surrey (Fig. 227). Usually also they are fitted with benches.
The rubric of the Prayer Book of 1549 directed that the officiating
minister at funerals should go to meet the corpse at the "church
style," _i.e._, lychgate; and again, according to the Prayer Book now
in use (of the year 1662), the clergyman and the clerks meeting the
corpse "at the entrance of the churchyard" (_i.e._, at the lychgate,
wherever one exists), there begin the burial service, and thence
precede the body into the church.
In some places, as at Heston and Hayes, in Middlesex, and at Chalfont
St Giles, the entrance gates form turnstiles, being fixed to a central
post, which revolves on a pivot.
There is hardly scope for any very great variety of types in
lychgates, but they may be classified generally under certain main
groups, viz., first, the porch-shape, in which the roof-ridge has the
same axis as the passage way; secondly, the shed-like form, in which
the roof-ridge runs transversely to the axial line of the passage way;
thirdly, a rare variety, embodying both the previous features, and
such that is exemplified by the charming lychgate at Clun, Shropshire
(Fig. 235), where two roof-ridges cross one another at right angles;
or at Berrynarbor, Devonshire, where the lychgate is on the plan of
a cross; and, lastly, lychgates formed by the combination of the
requisite passage way with a church house or other building. To this
class belongs the entrance to the churchyard at Penshurst, Kent,
an example well known and admired for its picturesqueness. Other
instances are those of Hartfield in Sussex (Fig. 201), Long Compton
in Warwickshire, Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire (Fig. 204), and
Bray in Berkshire (Figs. 202, 203). The last-named specimen is of
exceptional interest, not only because it contains an ancient chapel,
but also because it bears, on one of the uprights of the entrance,
the date of its construction, 1448, a most unusual circumstance.
The penthouse gallery, shown on the left of the photograph, is a
modern addition. It will also be noticed, on comparison of the two
illustrations, that the west window of the old chapel-chamber has,
since 1879, been robbed of some of its mullions, and now consists of
three lights only.
Two Welsh examples of lychgates, with a room built over each,
are enumerated by the Rev. Elias Owen, in 1886, viz., Derwen,
Denbighshire, where the upper storey is utilised for parochial
purposes, and Whitford, Flintshire, where it served as a schoolroom.
Latterly, "when the school increased in numbers, the lychgate was
blocked up and formed into a class-room" in addition to the upper
part. The same writer remarks that a fully equipped lychgate includes
seats, a lychcross and a lychstone. As a rule, both lychcrosses and
lychstones "have disappeared ... but underneath the roof of Caerwys
(Flintshire) lychgate are still to be seen the beam and socket, where
once stood the wooden lychcross, and on the ground are traceable the
foundation stones of the two lychseats, and of the lychstone in the
centre of the porch. This rest for the coffin was a low wall" of about
a coffin's length. Some of the distinctive features of lychgates were
destroyed in the eighteenth century. Thus "the beam that stretched
from wall to wall," and had a wooden cross inserted into it, "has,
in nearly every instance, been sawn away." The above-named example
at Caerwys, however, according to the _Inventory_ of the Royal
Commission, still survives. The place was visited in July 1910, and
the report runs: "Within the covered lychgate is a pre-Reformation oak
frame, the two uprights supporting a beam in which a cross was fixed,"
the ancient custom having been to set down corpses on their way to
burial upon the lychstone immediately beneath this cross.
The distribution of lychgates in various districts is most unequal.
Thus nearly every one of the twenty-four churches of the Deanery of
Woodleigh, Devonshire, is said to possess a lychgate. An instance,
which may safely be pronounced unique, is that of Troutbeck,
Westmorland, where there are, or were, no less than three stone
lychgates to one and the same churchyard.
[Illustration: 200. HAYES, MIDDLESEX
LYCHGATE]