Historical sketches of old Charing. / The hospital and chapel of Saint Mary Roncevall. Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England, and the monuments erected in her memory.

by Sir James Galloway

St. Albans.

The cross was erected in what became the Market Place of St. Albans by John Battle and his partners, some of the sculpture being supplied by Ralph of Chichester. The visit of the procession to St. Albans is especially noteworthy on account of the record remaining of the elaborate religious services in the Church of the great Benedictine Abbey during the night the procession rested there. In 1596 the cross is described as “verie stately.” There can be no doubt, however, that already the cross had suffered much damage by the lapse of time, as well as by neglect. At any rate, scant ceremony was shown to the cross in later years. It is stated to have been partly destroyed by order of Parliament in 1643; fragments, however, stood in the market place till the year 1702. In 1703 an octagonal market house was built on its site; in 1765 this became a pump house, and in 1872 the present drinking fountain in the centre of St. Albans was built on the consecrated site of the “verie stately cross.”