The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 363, March 28, 1829

A home of pleasure, a place meet for the Muses. —Leland.
Warwick—what olden glories and tales of other times are associated with this county. How many of its sites are connected with high-minded men and great and glorious actions. To the antiquary, the poet, and the philosopher, every foot is hallowed ground; and even the cold calculations of the commercial speculator treat with regard a county whose manufactures add to the stock of national wealth and importance. How many stories of love, war, and chivalry are told of its halls, castles, and monasteries, their lords and ladies and maidens of high birth. Kenilworth and Stratford—Leicester, Shakspeare and Warwick—like long trails of light, all flit before us in this retrospective dream of the days of merry England.
About the middle of the eighteenth century, this estate passed to a private gentleman, who built a handsome mansion here. But the chief attractions are the natural beauties of the grounds—as the rock, on which the house and chapel are built. Here is shown a cave, devoutly believed by neighbouring peasants to be that which Guy hewed with his own hands, and in which he lived
Like a Palmer poore.
The chapel founded by Richard Beauchamp was a plain, substantial edifice. The founder caused to be carved from the solid rock on which this chapel abuts, a rude statue of the famous Earl Guy, about eight feet in height. It would appear, from a print in Dugdale's Warwickshire, that this figure was well preserved in the seventeenth century.
She doth stray about By holy crosses , where she kneels and prays For happy wedlock hours.
Shakspeare.
In former times, an idea of peculiar sanctity was annexed to crosses. They not only marked civil and ecclesiastical limits, but probably served for stations, when the bounds were visited in processions. It was a common practice for mendicants to place themselves near some of these crosses, and ask alms; whence the ancient proverb, He begs like a cripple at a cross. Cornwall abounds with stone crosses. In churchyards, by the side of roads, and on the open downs, they remain solitary and neglected. In almost every town that had an abbey, or any other religious foundation, there was one of these structures. The monks frequently harangued the populace from these crosses. Many of them still remain, exhibiting beautiful specimens of architecture and sculpture. The most memorable and interesting objects of this kind were those which King Edward I. erected at the different stages where the corpse of Queen Eleanor rested, in its progress from Nottinghamshire to London. Mr. Gough tells us, that there were originally fifteen of these elegant structures; but only three are now remaining, which, by their peculiar beauty, as specimens of architecture and productions of art, serve to excite regret at the destruction of the others. The first of the three above-mentioned, is the cross at Geddington, about three miles from Kettering, in Northamptonshire. The second is the Queen's Cross, near Northampton. The third is the cross at Waltham, in Hertfordshire. For a further account of these crosses, see Mr. Britton's Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain.