Monument record 1880/1/3 - Standing Cross in St Bartholomew's Churchyard

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 55451 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

Sundial: shaft probably medieval, plate dated 1705. Ashlar red sandstone. Square base of 2 steps has socket containing slightly tapering octagonal shaft with a coved cap of buff sandstone carrying a small square sundial plate inscribed: Robert Hankinson, Richard Robinson C*W 1705.

The shaft probably belongs to a churchyard cross that was broken in 1613. Parish accounts record the repair and setting up of a dialstone in 1779.

<2> English Heritage, Various, Schedule Entry (Scheduled Ancient Monuments Amendment), 30399 (Scheduling Record). SCH2950.

The monument includes the base and part of the shaft of a medieval cross in the churchyard of St Bartholomew's church, south of the south porch. The cross is Listed Grade II. The base of the cross is constructed of local buff sandstone and has two steps. The first step is square, of large ashlar blocks and measures 1.4m wide and 0.2m above the turf. The second step is a single massive block 0.83m wide and 0.2m high with a socket 0.45m wide. Set into this is a slightly tapered shaft cut off at 0.95m. The shaft is square at the base rising through dart shaped corners to octagonal. This has been capped by a coved block 0.15m high and made of finer stone of different colour. Set into the top was a sundial plate now missing. The style of the original cross dates from the early 15th century and it is well preserved in its original location on the south side of the church. Its survival gives insights into the activities of Catholic recusants resisting the iconoclasts of the Reformation in Cheshire.

<3> Richards R, 1947, Old Cheshire Churches, p.41-2 (Book). SCH2309.

Sundial in the churchyard. The shaft is octagonal and placed on a step. The dial is inscribed: "Robert Hankinson, Richard Robinson, C.W., 1705". There formerly stood in the churchyard of Barrow an ancient cross "erected and made of squared stone with diverse costly and curious works wrought in and uppon the same". Around May 1613, the cross was destroyed by a group of "Puritan gentry".

<4> Various, Various, Oral communication to the HER, Edwards R, 24/07/2023 (Oral Communication). SCH2330.

Richards' (see 3) contains an interesting account of the former use of standing crosses and the destruction of the Barrow cross in the seventeenth century as part of the Puritan iconoclasm of the seventeenth century. He also fails to identify the base and shaft of the sundial as the remains of the cross, as does the later MPP scoring (see CHER 1880/1/2).