What is a 'pedestal of a wayside cross'?
The pedestal of a wayside cross is a large stone base with a slot cut into it where the cross shaft would be held. During the 16th century many crosses were taken down just leaving the pedestal. It is this pedestal base that often survives today, either as just the pedestal, or built into a more modern cross like a war memorial cross. There seem to be 2 sorts of pedestal bases. The earliest pedestals are a single solid base whilst the later ones are a solid base with steps. On the earliest pedestal bases the edges are often chamfered, especially in the Chorley to Burscough area, and some have a cut which would release any rain water. From the 16C onwards, many crosses were remove and funeral processions would still stop by the remaining pedestal and bless the party with the captured rain water which was considered 'holy water'. It is possible that the cuts we occasionally see where made to stop this practice. |
The terrain
A large part of West Lancashire is below the 7m above sea level mark. This means that large areas were very marshy and waterlogged or even as, in the case of Martin Mere, flooded for at least part of the year. This marshy area along with the river system, creates isolated areas of slightly higher ground which the wayside crosses seem to mark out. If you look at fig4 (11m flood levels), which is produced from lidar data and then flooding to 11m, you can see that the majority of the most westerly crosses define this contour line. So we can conclude that many of the routes defined by wayside crosses along the 11m contour line allow the travellers to see safe routes by avoiding travelling west of the line of crosses. |