<< Our Photo Pages >> Halton St Wilfrid's Churchyard - Ancient Cross in England in Lancashire
Submitted by LivingRocks on Monday, 18 April 2005 Page Views: 13447
Early Medieval (Dark Age)Site Name: Halton St Wilfrid's ChurchyardCountry: England County: Lancashire Type: Ancient Cross
Nearest Town: Lancaster Nearest Village: Halton
Map Ref: SD49916469
Latitude: 54.075687N Longitude: 2.767021W
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 4th Jun 2015 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 3 Access: 5 Ancient Cross, St. Wilfrid's, Halton: From St. Margaret’s in Horby, we followed the busy A683, turning off onto the road to Halton just south of Caton. Although only a side road, this road seemed busier than the main road.
This must be one of the most dangerous sites I’ve visited. The church is located on a bend on this busy, busy road and the gate into the church is less than a foot from the edge of the road with no pavement, and it’s quite stiff to open – nearly got run over trying to get into the church and had to be very careful exiting, as you couldn’t see what was coming round the bend to the right.
The church looks more like a house with a stone tower, and unfortunately was locked, which was a shame, because the Pastscape record tells us there are pieces of 5 Anglo Saxon stones built into the interior of the tower.
According to the Pastscape record 41153, the pre-Norman cross (restored in 1890) tells the story of the Sigurd legend (which I’ll need to find out about), although to my eye not all the pieces matched and must be several crosses amalgamated together. A bit of a disappointment really.
A partly restored decorated pre-Norman high cross constructed of local sandstone and located in the churchyard to the south of St Wilfrid's Church, Halton.
It consists of a shaft, a stone base or socle, and a cross head. The stone base is three-stepped and measures 1.5m by 1.4m at the base. The height of the cross from the bottom of the shaft to the top of the cross head is 3.6m, making an overall height of 4.5m.
The shaft is of rectangular cross section and comprises four pieces, three of which are original and one of which is a relatively modern addition inserted between the original fragments during reconstruction of the cross after damage in order to give an impression of the original height.
The decoration on the shaft is of 11th century date; at the base are scenes from the Sigurd legend, an Anglicized and Christianized version of the story of St George slaying the dragon. At the top of the shaft there are emblems of the four Evangelists, St Matthew, St Mark, St Luke and St John, and below this are parts of four arched panels containing figures, but this part of the cross has been broken and lost. The cross head has four arms of which only the carved upper arm is original. (Description from DEFRA)
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