<< Our Photo Pages >> St Peter's Church (Bolton) - Ancient Cross in England in Greater Manchester
Submitted by Sunny100 on Friday, 27 May 2011 Page Views: 5939
Early Medieval (Dark Age)Site Name: St Peter's Church (Bolton) Alternative Name: The Bolton CrossCountry: England
NOTE: This site is 0.654 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Greater Manchester Type: Ancient Cross
Nearest Town: Bolton
Map Ref: SD721093
Latitude: 53.579545N Longitude: 2.422858W
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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St Peter's Parish Church is located on St Peter's Way just to the east of the centre of Bolton. It houses a 9th-10th century Anglian/Norse cross and other fragments of a similar age.
In the church an Anglo/Norse cross standing 5 foot 10 inches tall (178 cm) has been painstakingly reconstructed from various fragments that were dated to the 9th-10th century. In 1870 when the church was being rebuilt three fragments were discovered; these were then placed along with other fragments in the tower. Then in 1890 all these bits were put together in a rather haphazard way; the head was reconstructed but with the wrong arm and then the two shaft sections were placed on top of the other but wrongly cemented into the correct position with the chevron arch being added but joined to the wrong section which had a boss on the stone above it. All very confusing to say the least.
All these muddled-up pieces caused the famous J.Romilly Allen problems in 1894 when he drew the cross looking like one single piece of stone with no breaks due to restoration. However, these problems were eventually rectified and the cross reconstruction made proper, or as good as can be. Not much of the cross-head remains but the boss and two arms. The shaft is in three sections (it may have originally been four) and there are some rather nice carvings on both sides including broad knotwork, moulding along the edges, a ring crossed by two straps in saltire-fashion with small bosses at the ends, diamond shapes, chevron, and what could be Greek key pattern-work on the sides.
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