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<< Our Photo Pages >> Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) - Ancient Cross in England in Cumbria

Submitted by astronomer on Friday, 13 October 2006  Page Views: 8903

Early Medieval (Dark Age)Site Name: Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Country: England
NOTE: This site is 1.1 km away from the location you searched for.

County: Cumbria Type: Ancient Cross
Nearest Town: Whitehaven  Nearest Village: Beckermet
Map Ref: NY015061
Latitude: 54.440728N  Longitude: 3.520289W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Anne T visited on 24th Oct 2014 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 5 Ancient crosses, St. Bridget’s Church, Beckermet: Despite having been given directions by the vicar of St. John’s, Beckermet, we had several attempts at finding St. Bridget’s, but got there in the end. We need to take a left hand turn off the main road through Beckermet opposite Crofhouse Farm into a small housing estate, then taking the right hand turn marked ‘St. Bridget’s Church’ a few hundred yards down this lane and following this narrow lane down to the church. By this time, the wind had got up and whilst it wasn’t particularly cold, it wasn’t a day to linger. There was some parking outside the church, which looked virtually derelict, although there were some recent burials in the churchyard, with fresh flowers and containers of water by the church door. The door to the church was open, shut only by a wooden latch which pivoted on a central nail. Both cross shafts were to the south of the church, looking onto open countryside, with the towers of Seascale/Sellafield in the near distance. The taller of the two cross shafts, Beckermet St. Bridget 02, dates from the tenth to eleventh century, and is made of St. Bees sandstone. According to the ASCorpus notes, the three encircling mouldings around the cylinder are rare. I found the shorter of the two cross shafts fascinating, with the remnants of an inscription on its western face. Apparently, there was a third fragment, part of a cross-head, which is now under plaster in the east wall of the chancel.

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by astronomer : The squat Saxon cross at Beckermet is stylistically very similar to Eliseg's pillar at Llangollen and to others in the Lyme, the moorlands fringing the eastern border of Cheshire and Staffordshire with the Peak District, especially between Macclesfield and Leek. The western side of the Beckermet cross, shown here, displays a panel thought to carry Viking runes carved on its surface. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Cross in Cumbria

The two Saxon, Viking crosses at Beckermet are in the ancient churchyard of St Bridget's, Beckermet, Cumbria. The church is thought to occupy a Christian site dating to the 7th C.

The slightly taller Viking cross is typical of others in the area.

The squat, Saxon cross is curiously similar to Eliseg's Pillar at Llangollen, 150 miles away in NE Wales. It is also stylistically similar to crosses in the Staffordshire Moorlands and as far away as Stapleford in Nottinghamshire with a roughly cylindrical lower portion of the shaft giving way to a rectangular upper part, the two separated by a horizontal moulding. The upper part bears 'swags' , mouldings on its four sides, very similar to the 'Mercian' crosses in the Staffordshire Moorlands.
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Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by astronomer  : Anglo-Norse shaft at Beckermet. Now rather truncated compared with Collingwood's drawing. (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by Sunny100 : Anon but possibly by W.G.Collingwood 1854-1932 from his work 'Victoria History of The County of Cumberland' 1899. Pre-Conquest cross-shaft with interlacing in St Bridget's church-yard at Beckermet, Cumbria. (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by Sunny100 : Sketch by J. Charles Cox 1844-1919 from his work 'County Churches of Westmorland and Cumbria' 1913. Pre-Conquest cross-shaft in St Bridget's churchyard, Beckermet, Cumbria (2 comments - Vote or comment on this photo)

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by Anne T : The northern and eastern faces of 'Beckermet St Bridget 01', which is made of medium grained pale yellow sandstone. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by Anne T : Close up of the faded inscription on the 'Beckermet St Bridget 01' cross shaft and base, dating from the second quarter of the ninth century. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by Anne T : Close up of the taller of the two cross shafts and bases at St. Bridget's, Beckermet. ASCorpus ref: Beckermet St Bridget 02, made of fine-grained red sandstone, dating from the tenth to eleventh centuries.

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by Sunny100 : A drawing possibly by W.G.Collingwood from his work 'Victoria History of the County of Cumberland' 1899. A pre-Conquest cross-shaft with interlace decoration stands in St Bridget's churchyard, Beckermet, Cumbria. (8 comments)

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by astronomer : The eastern side of the Beckermet Saxon cross shows two vertical columns of spiral patterns. (1 comment)

Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)
Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) submitted by astronomer : The southern side of the Saxon cross clearly shows how the rectangular upper part is in the form of a flattened, concave, tapering to a rectangular flat top in which there is a central hole that may have located a peg connecting a cross head. (1 comment)

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"Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's)" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Re: Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 28 October 2014
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From dianemcilmoyle:

This church is one of a cluster of five dedicated to St. Bridget or St. Bride in the area. There is a theory that they pre-date St. Bridget, and may in fact have originally been pagan sites dedicated to the Irish goddess, Brigid/Bride; later missionaries built St.Bridget churches on the spot to 'claim' them!

There is, I'm sorry to say, no way to prove this theory, but it persists!

The Anglian crosses have been subject to a lot of analysis. In the 19th century, this one was believed to date to 600CE, but this is wrong. The date is probably 12th century, ie. the same date as the church, despite the runic inscription.
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Re: Beckermet Ancient Crosses (St Bridget's) by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 28 October 2014
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From Sunny100:

In the churchyard of St Bridget's Old Church half a mile south-west of Beckermet, near Egremont, there are two pre-Conquest carved cross-shafts. One of these has a ruinic inscription, while the other has interlacing. The little church is situated roughly halfway between Egremont and Seascale just west of the A595.

The two cross-shaft stand side by side on rough stone bases, the smaller shaft is Anglo-Norse and around 4 feet high. On it's flat face and rather odd shaped top, it has a ruinic inscription which when deciphered remembers Bishop Tuda (of Paegnalaech, Northumbria) Queen Arlec and her son Athfeschar and her daughter Edyth. The date of this is around 1000 CE, although Bishop Tuda died in 664. The other shaft is 6 feet high and has Celtic-style knotwork interlacing and scrollwork but is quite damaged; this may be earlier in date than the other - though we don't known the exact date. Originally these two cross-shafts would have been high crosses.

According to legend, a Celtic monastery stood here in the Dark Ages, perhaps founded by St Bridget, or one of her many female disciples. However, I don't know whether St Bridget ever came across the sea to visit Cumbria, though it's quite possible as Ireland's not that far away from here.
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