Processions, proclamations and punishment

The wayside crosses that were once beacons in the British landscape have seldom survived the forces of Nature and iconoclasm. Lucien de Guise follows a trail of destruction

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ANYONE who has seen the first few minutes of The Hateful Eight perhaps the least-viewed - Quentin Tarantino bloodbath will remember the roadside cross. It's post-civil War Wyoming, in a blizzard. Not the sort of thing an English outlaw of the Victorian era would have encountered and yet Robin of Loxley almost certainly doffed his Lincoln green cap to the large stone crosses that marked the limit of Sherwood Forest. There were two at Linby, Nottinghamshire, in Robin Hood's day seven centuries ago. One still stands, in somewhat altered condition.

Linby is typical of the British countryside. Once upon a time, there were crucifixes, Calvaries and plainer crosses throughout the land. Nottinghamshire alone had hundreds, most of which have suffered like Linby's. One sad example in nearby Kirkby had just about pulled through centuries of English weather and iconoclasm, only to be finished off by a lorry in 1987.

The earliest prototypes were the 'high crosses' that emerged more than a millennium ago in Ireland, spreading to Scotland, Northumbria, Wales and Cornwall. From the beginning, they performed multiple functions: boundary markers of sacred ground, rallying points and places of religious instruction and declarations of secular power. They often faced east towards Jerusalem and the North Sea, protecting against Viking marauders.

In lands without municipal community centres, the rural freestanding cross was a vital piece of social infrastructure. The 'market cross' went on to be essential to urban life. Although Britain still has a better inventory than anywhere in Europe, market crosses have not inspired the same attention as their rural cousins, despite sometimes offering bonuses such as running water. Hundreds still stand, often unnoticed amid the hurly-burly of UK cityscapes.