By far the most interesting feature of these maps, in the eyes at least of an antiquary, are the numerous instances in which crosses are marked. The remains of crosses and cross stumps on these Derbyshire moors have been casually noticed from time to time by cursory writers. In a paper contributed to the Reliquary many years ago, when under the editorship of Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, it was asserted with some confidence that these crosses marked out the three great divisions or wards of the Forest of Peak. This was a natural kind of guess to make, but investigation immediately proved that such a supposition was quite baseless. With the possible solitary exception of the cross on the old pack-horse track from the head of Edale into Hayfield, not one of these crosses has any possible connection with forest bounds. Nor are they, as has been conjectured by another writer, terminal stones of monastic lands, for we know with a fair amount of accuracy the directions in which such lands lay, and in no one case do these crosses correspond with such limits. It is also quite obvious that for the most part these Peak crosses cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be described as mere wayside crosses, either to mark some special incident or tragedy, or to excite the Christian devotion of the wayfarer; and this for the simple reason that the majority of the crosses do not appear to have been on any frequented track of either the remote or nearer past. Nor is it possible to conceive, by those who have visited any number of them, that they could have been utilized for the purposes of guiding or general direction.
It is, of course, far easier to say what they were not, than to arrive at any true solution as to what was their general object or design. The solution that so far seems the most probable has already been elsewhere succinctly stated without awakening adverse criticism.[79] All those crosses that have been hitherto identified by myself and friends during three rambles with the old plans in our hands in three successive years, have been on important boundary lines. I believe almost the whole of them are pre-Norman, and I am at present strongly inclined to believe that they mark the setting out of ecclesiastical divisions or parishes, or parochial chapelries, soon after the reconversion of England had become an established fact, and when Christianity, under the ordering of Theodore and Wilfrid, was becoming definitely organised and ceasing to be mere scattered groups of missionary stations. There are reasons which are too long for statement here why such a planning out was probably accomplished in Derbyshire at an early date. It is obvious that if ecclesiastical bounds were to be marked out in a comparatively wild and treeless district, something artificial would be needed in far greater abundance than in ordinary districts, where large trees, river banks, ancient roads or lands pertaining to particular holders, could readily be named and utilized for boundary purposes.
The supposition that these crosses are of a township or parish boundary character is much strengthened by the frequency of their occurrence in the exact places where there are proofs of fairly early cultivation, and where there were rather intricate intersections of such divisions.
Perhaps the most interesting of these seventeenth century plans is the one which includes a considerable area, and has at the head the following descriptive title, written in a straggling hand and signed by the two surveyors:—
“The Mappe of the Wastes and Commons in Bowdon le Cappell, Fairefield, Ferneleigh, Shalcross and Mellor as they are eaqually devided into two eaqual parts quantity and qualitie considered and meas’ed by us Thomas Hibbart and Samuel Barton two Survayors being Sworne upon our Oathes to that purpose by the Commissioners and delivered up unto the saide Commissioners the eight daye of October 1640
“By us Tho: Hibbart
“Sa: Barton.”
On another part of the map is written:
Measured and divided by a Scale of fortie in the Inch.
The part of this map descriptive of the wastes and commons of Mellor, which contained 356 acres, and which it was proposed to divide equally between the King and the tenants, is marked with several crosses. At the extreme north of the tenants’ portion is a curiously designed landmark, here termed “Arnfeelde Poule” (13). This outline drawing has the appearance of a pole or slender shaft affixed to the top of a somewhat elaborate cross base. In other maps the same boundary is outlined after different fashions, two of which are here reproduced. From one of these, having a cross on the summit, it may be concluded that it originally had that form. The name Arnfield or Armfield is not now in any way known in the district, but one of the six roads or lanes which meet at this point is still called Pole Lane. There is no doubt that it took its name from one Robert Armfield, whose house and land are figured on another survey. The place is now known as Jordanwall Nook, and Jordan was the name of another tenant in adjoining lands. This pole or cross is described in a survey of 1695 as parting the hamlets of Whittle, Thornsett, and Mellor. At this spot, at the junction of two of the roads, there is a large piece of boulder stone, that has been roughly hewn, measuring 37 in. by 25 in., and over the stone wall is another considerable fragment. These are probably the remains of the base of Armfield pole or cross when it was broken up. Other crosses marked on the Mellor section of the 1640 map are respectively designated “the Birgwerd Crosse,” “the Mislne Crosse,” and “the Stafforde Crosse,” all of them on boundaries.