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Monday 15 July 2024

The past survives

 

One distinct advantage of this area is you don't have to travel huge distances to see and experience the past and indeed there is a lot of "past" in that picture.

The two main objects you can see are the Sandbach Crosses comprising of two 9th-century stone Anglo-Saxon crosses now erected in the market place in the town of Sandbach, Cheshire, England.

They are unusually large and elaborate examples of the type and are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building and an scheduled monument.

 Either after the Reformation or during the Civil War they were thrown down by the Puritans and their parts were scattered over a wide area.

Larger pieces of the crosses were found as far away as Oulton and Tarporley while smaller pieces were found on various sites in Sandbach. 

In the early 19th century they were collected together and in 1816 were reassembled and erected under the direction of George Ormerod, the Cheshire historian.

Their survival is a chilling reminder of the dangers of religious extremism and of the will of the people over time to see to it that their heritage be restored

Sometimes the attempt to link places to areas formed centuries later for other reasons fails and that is the case here too as this was a part of the Kingdom Of Mercia, centred on Lichfield, Staffordshire and indeed walking about the town today reminds one of more Whitchurch or Stone than anywhere in the North.

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