173. CASTLE COMBE, WILTSHIRE
MARKET CROSS
174, 175, 176. CASTLE COMBE, WILTSHIRE
MARKET CROSS, WITH PLAN, SECTION, AND DETAILS
The Market Cross at Cheddar, Somersetshire (Fig. [165]), is a stone structure of six four-centred open arches and shelter, evidently built up round an older cross of the shaft-on-steps type. The shaft, which dates from the fifteenth century, is octagonal, and, with its knop, rears through the top of the roof. The piers of the surrounding arches are buttressed and the parapet is embattled. Extensive renewing took place in 1834, and the steps were repaired in 1835.
The Market Cross at Somerton, Somersetshire (Fig. [166]), which may be compared with that of Cheddar, was built in 1673, a surprisingly late date in view of the character of the cross itself. The latter is octagonal, with pyramidal roof of eight cants; its piers are buttressed, and, above a stringcourse with gargoyles at the outer angles, rises an embattled parapet. So closely, indeed, are the forms of architectural tradition adhered to, that, but for the segmental arches with their heavy keystones, one would have had little hesitation in assigning the cross to the first half of the sixteenth century.
At Maidstone (Fig. [167]), the Market Cross, or as it was formerly called, from its original purpose, the Corn Cross, stood at the top of High Street in the centre of the roadway. The date of its erection is unknown, but it is thought to have been about the middle of the sixteenth century, at the time of the incorporation of the borough by Edward VI. A sketch, ascribed to Cornelius Jansen, drawn upon ass's skin and dated 1623—the property, through the Bosville family, of J. H. Baverstock—shows the cross to have been an octagonal structure with an umbrella-like roof, covered apparently with slates, and surmounted by a leaden cross. Later drawings and paintings show that the arches were four-centred, and supported on clustered wooden shafts, and that, in place of the cross on the top, there had been substituted a lead-covered dome, or cupola, from the summit of which rose a pole of turned wood. In the spandrels of the arches were curious carvings illustrative of a butcher's calling. About 1608 it was converted into the butcher's market. The cross, says William Newton in his Antiquities of Maidstone, 1741, "appears to have been very large; but only a part of it is now remaining, which is handsomely covered with lead, and used for the fish market." In 1771 it was considered to be an obstruction to the traffic, and was accordingly moved on rollers a slight distance to the side of the street, just below the square stone conduit shown in the illustration; but it did not stand there very long, for it was finally demolished in 1780.