Pre-Norman Stone Crosses in the British Isles

According to its notice board, St. Peter's Church in Prestbury, Cheshire, dates back to 1220. However, showing that the church is still a thriving centre of the community, the lychgate has been adorned with lintels that celebrate the year 2000. Passing through the lychgate into the enormous churchyard, you encounter a signpost directing visitors to two ancient gems, a Norman chapel and a Saxon Cross.

If, like me, you visit this churchyard on a day when there has been some rain, then take care, because the pathway through the churchyard is made up of gravestones laid flat on the ground, and these are quite slippery when wet. Follow the sign and you will see the chapel and then the cross.

The cross is one of the most puzzling monuments of its kind, being quite unlike anything else. Perhaps because of its uniqueness, suggestions about its age vary enormously from the sixth century to the tenth. Wisely, perhaps, the plaque in front of it is non-committal; its inscription reads: "These fragments of ancient art, forming part of a cross erected by our Saxon forefathers a thousand years ago to commemorate, as is believed, the first preaching of Christianity in this place, were found embedded in the walls of the Church where, in a mutilated state, they had remained concealed from view for fully four centuries & were placed in their present position in the hope that they will be preserved by future generations as a treasured landmark of our past history."

The lower two pieces certainly belong together, but it seems harder to imagine how the third piece relates to them, being wider in one direction while narrower in the other. (However, it is not unknown for Saxon crosses to have deep shafts and shallow heads: one such survives pretty well complete at Rolleston-on-Dove in Staffordshire.) The carving on the faces of the cross is interesting but difficult to decipher. On the west face, the one with the plaque in front of it, there seems to be a general jumble of shapes. One possible interpretation of them would be to see the broad vertical bar in the lower part as a tree trunk, with the complex shapes above it being foliage. However, that would not explain the repeated loop design. The south face contains carved outlines of animals, possibly a wolf and a donkey. Two people appear holding hands on the east face, and below them there is another animal, but sadly the cleft in the stone prevents a clear identification. The north face of the cross also includes a carved figure. On the topmost piece, front and back, there is a curved border which suggests the presence of a wheel-head.

The doorway of the nearby Norman chapel is apparently intact, with a representation of Christ in Majesty in the tympanum - the design shows evidence of having been painted at some stage. The upper parts of the walls and the roof were restored in 1747.

Within the main church building there are some other splendid artefacts, as one would expect in a church which has been accumulating them over a period of eight centuries. Until well into the Industrial age, Prestbury was the mother church of an exceedingly large parish which stretched for many miles north-eastwards and north-westwards from the map shown below.

Prestbury village is a few kilometres north of Macclesfield and has its own railway station.
St. Peter's Church is on the left of the A538 on the way from Macclesfield to Mottram St. Andrew.

* The Ordnance Survey National Grid Reference (and corresponding Latitude/Longitude) given at the top of the pages describing individual sites usually refer to the location of the closest or most prominent entrance to the site where the monument is to be found - e.g. a gate into a churchyard. For monuments located in open country, or at a significant distance from the site entrance as just defined, the co-ordinates usually refer to the exact location of the monument.
Please allow for a small error in the co-ordinates of up to a couple of dozen metres.

Thanks to the people at streetmap.co.uk, if you click on the Grid References in the magenta boxes on the site pages,
you'll see an extract from the relevant Ordnance Survey 1:50000 Landranger map!

As the official mapping agency of the United Kingdom Government, the Ordnance Survey produces the definitive maps of the country. They contain a wealth of information.
For more details, visit www,ordnancesurvey.co.uk/leisure

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Click to go to Pre-Norman crosses in:	England	the island of Ireland	the Isle of Man	Scotland	Wales	Read about the Saints
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The four faces of the Prestbury cross, October 2000