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

Stamford.

There is no information as to the builder and designer of the cross at Stamford. Richard Butcher, some time Town Clerk of Stamford, in a work published in 1717, states as follows:—

“Not far from hence upon the North side of the Town near unto York Highway, and about twelve score from the Town Gate, which is called Clement Gate, stands an ancient cross of Free Stone of a very curious Fabrick, having many ancient scutchions of arms insculpted in the stone about it, as the Arms of Castile Leon quartered, being the paternal coat of the King of Spain, and divers other hatchments belonging to that Crown, which envious Time hath so defaced, that only the Ruins appear to my eye, and therefore not to be described by my Pen.”[^[45]]

[45]. Butcher, Richard. London, 1717. “Survey and Antiquity of the Town of Stamford.”

In Camden’s “Britannia” there is the note:—

“Not far from the Town without Clement Gate, stood a fine cross, erected by Edward I, in memory of his Queen Eleanor, but pulled down by the soldiers in the Civil War.”[^[46]]

[46]. Britannia. Camden-Gough, ii, p. 351.