Such are some of the old municipal buildings of England. There are many others which might have been mentioned. It is a sad pity that so many have disappeared and been replaced by modern and uninteresting structures. If a new town hall be required in order to keep pace with the increasing dignity of an important borough, the Corporation can at least preserve their ancient municipal hall which has so long watched over the fortunes of the town and shared in its joys and sorrows, and seek a fresh site for their new home without destroying the old.
CHAPTER XII
CROSSES
A careful study of the ordnance maps of certain counties of England reveals the extraordinary number of ancient crosses which are scattered over the length and breadth of the district. Local names often suggest the existence of an ancient cross, such as Blackrod, or Black-rood, Oakenrod, Crosby, Cross Hall, Cross Hillock. But if the student sally forth to seek this sacred symbol of the Christian faith, he will often be disappointed. The cross has vanished, and even the recollection of its existence has completely passed away. Happily not all have disappeared, and in our travels we shall be able to discover many of these interesting specimens of ancient art, but not a tithe of those that once existed are now to be discovered.
Many causes have contributed to their disappearance. The Puritans waged insensate war against the cross. It was in their eyes an idol which must be destroyed. They regarded them as popish superstitions, and objected greatly to the custom of "carrying the corse towards the church all garnished with crosses, which they set down by the way at every cross, and there all of them devoutly on their knees make prayers for the dead."[45] Iconoclastic mobs tore down the sacred symbol in blind fury. In the summer of 1643 Parliament ordered that all crucifixes, crosses, images, and pictures should be obliterated or otherwise destroyed, and during the same year the two Houses passed a resolution for the destruction of all crosses throughout the kingdom. They ordered Sir Robert Harlow to superintend the levelling to the ground of St. Paul's Cross, Charing Cross, and that in Cheapside, and a contemporary print shows the populace busily engaged in tearing down the last. Ladders are placed against the structure, workmen are busy hammering the figures, and a strong rope is attached to the actual cross on the summit and eager hands are dragging it down. Similar scenes were enacted in many other towns, villages, and cities of England, and the wonder is that any crosses should have been left. But a vast number did remain in order to provide further opportunities for vandalism and wanton mischief, and probably quite as many have disappeared during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as those which were destroyed by Puritan iconoclasts. When trade and commerce developed, and villages grew into towns, and sleepy hollows became hives of industry, the old market-places became inconveniently small, and market crosses with their usually accompanying stocks and pillories were swept away as useless obstructions to traffic.[46] Thus complaints were made with regard to the market-place at Colne. There was no room for the coaches to turn. Idlers congregated on the steps of the cross and interfered with the business of the place. It was pronounced a nuisance, and in 1882 was swept away. Manchester market cross existed until 1816, when for the sake of utility and increased space it was removed. A stately Jacobean Proclamation cross remained at Salford until 1824. The Preston Cross, or rather obelisk, consisting of a clustered Gothic column, thirty-one feet high, standing on a lofty pedestal which rested on three steps, was taken down by an act of vandalism in 1853. The Covell Cross at Lancaster shared its fate, being destroyed in 1826 by the justices when they purchased the house now used as the judges' lodgings. A few years ago it was rebuilt as a memorial of the accession of King Edward VII.
Individuals too, as well as corporations, have taken a hand in the overthrow of crosses. There was a wretch named Wilkinson, vicar of Goosnargh, Lancashire, who delighted in their destruction. He was a zealous Protestant, and on account of his fame as a prophet of evil his deeds were not interfered with by his neighbours. He used to foretell the deaths of persons obnoxious to him, and unfortunately several of his prophecies were fulfilled, and he earned the dreaded character of a wizard. No one dared to prevent him, and with his own hands he pulled down several of these venerable monuments. Some drunken men in the early years of the nineteenth century pulled down the old market cross at Rochdale. There was a cross on the bowling-green at Whalley in the seventeenth century, the fall of which is described by a cavalier, William Blundell, in 1642. When some gentlemen came to use the bowling-green they found their game interfered with by the fallen cross. A strong, powerful man was induced to remove it. He reared it, and tried to take it away by wresting it from edge to edge, but his foot slipped; down he fell, and the cross falling upon him crushed him to death. A neighbour immediately he heard the news was filled with apprehension of a similar fate, and confessed that he and the deceased had thrown down the cross. It was considered a dangerous act to remove a cross, though the hope of discovering treasure beneath it often urged men to essay the task. A farmer once removed an old boundary stone, thinking it would make a good "buttery stone." But the results were dire. Pots and pans, kettles and crockery placed upon it danced a clattering dance the livelong night, and spilled their contents, disturbed the farmer's rest, and worrited the family. The stone had to be conveyed back to its former resting-place, and the farm again was undisturbed by tumultuous spirits. Some of these crosses have been used for gate-posts. Vandals have sometimes wanted a sun-dial in their churchyards, and have ruthlessly knocked off the head and upper part of the shaft of a cross, as they did at Halton, Lancashire, in order to provide a base for their dial. In these and countless other ways have these crosses suffered, and certainly, from the æsthetic and architectural point of view, we have to bewail the loss of many of the most lovely monuments of the piety and taste of our forefathers.
We will now gather up the fragments of the ancient crosses of England ere these also vanish from our country. They served many purposes and were of divers kinds. There were preaching-crosses, on the steps of which the early missionary or Saxon priest stood when he proclaimed the message of the gospel, ere churches were built for worship. These wandering clerics used to set up crosses in the villages, and beneath their shade preached, baptized, and said Mass. The pagan Saxons worshipped stone pillars; so in order to wean them from their superstition the Christian missionaries erected these stone crosses and carved upon them the figures of the Saviour and His Apostles, displaying before the eyes of their hearers the story of the Cross written in stone. The north of England has many examples of these crosses, some of which were fashioned by St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, in the eighth century. When he travelled about his diocese a large number of monks and workmen attended him, and amongst these were the cutters in stone, who made the crosses and erected them on the spots which Wilfrid consecrated to the worship of God. St. Paulinus and others did the same. Hence arose a large number of these Saxon works of art, which we propose to examine and to try to discover the meaning of some of the strange sculptures found upon them.
