<< Our Photo Pages >> St Luke's Church (Townhead) - Ancient Cross in England in Cumbria
Submitted by Anne T on Saturday, 10 February 2018 Page Views: 1385
Early Medieval (Dark Age)Site Name: St Luke's Church (Townhead) Alternative Name: St Luke's Church (Ousby)Country: England
NOTE: This site is 4.114 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Cumbria Type: Ancient Cross
Nearest Town: Penrith Nearest Village: Ousby
Map Ref: NY6317734328
Latitude: 54.702620N Longitude: 2.57293W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Anne T visited on 9th Feb 2018 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 5 Ancient cross, St. Luke's Church, Townhead, near Ousby. OK, so the weather was supposed to be better the further west we went, so we took the option of travelling to this site via Alston and the high moors. A bit of a mistake, as there was much more snow here than at home, but it was lovely, if a bit of a slow drive. The roads within Ousby village were quite complex for such a small village, and we managed twice to take the wrong turn, but finally ended up at this very small hamlet.
Parking is available just to the west of the church, where the road widens, although walking to the gate of the church was tricky as it was quite a busy road, with farm traffic and lorries (considering the road is a dead end, I wondered where the traffic went).
No-one had been in the churchyard since the snow had fallen, so we picked our way up to the north door. The church is relatively plain inside, until you walk up to the chancel, where there is the most fantastic carved effigy, made out of wood and now encased in a glass/plastic case to preserve it. Half of this has broken off, but I was glad we'd gone inside the church to see this. There was no church guide, or any notes for visitors, and I haven't been able to find out much about this since.
The cross base and remnant of cross shaft are to the south of the nave/chancel, almost on top of a tall, red sandstone grave stone. We could see no markings or carvings on the cross shaft or base, apart from a shallow carved cross on top of the shaft, with small 'cups' as terminals.
The snowy hills in the background made this quite an atmospheric place.
This old cross base, with a 3ft fragment of rectangular cross shaft, is located to the south of the chancel in the churchyard.
There is no mention of the cross base in Pastscape, but there is brief reference to it on The Cumbria Gazetteer, which simply describes this as a cubic sandstone cross base, with c3ft of shaft in situ within the socket.
There appear to be no markings or carvings on any of the sides of the cross shaft or base (or they are too weathered to be visible), but on the top of the cross shaft there is a shallow carved cross, each end with a small 'cup' as a terminal.
For anyone interested in effigies, there is an unusual 14th century carving of a knight in the northern side of the chancel - apparently made out of one tree trunk. Half of it has fallen off, and its now preserved in a case, but it is well worth seeing.
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