A costly piece of work
Many English market towns have a cross to act as a marker of the market place, and sometimes this cross is an elaborate structure offering shelter too. Cities such as Salisbury and Chichester have big crosses like this, and so does the Wiltshire market town of Malmesbury. Malmesbury’s market cross is a really fancy octagonal stone structure, encrusted with carving, and the Tudor writer John Leland described it as ‘a right costly piece of work’. For me it’s certainly the most outstanding structure in the town apart from the terrific Norman abbey.
Although the cross is a popular shelter and meeting place for local people, probably most visitors to the town, hot-footing it to the abbey or the shops, only give the structure a rapid glance. That’s a pity because the carving repays a closer look. As well as the truly top-notch Gothic detailing – pinnacles, crockets, and that dazzling structure at the top – there are some marvellous grotesques. These are small versions of the grotesques (often referred to as gargoyles) on medieval churches, and make up a small rogues’ gallery of medieval humour. The spitting image of the Middle Ages.
Walking recently through the market cross in Witney in Oxfordshire, I was distracted by the twittering of creatures above. Looking up, I saw a gathering of local teenagers, perching happily on the beams...
ReplyDeleteAh, twittering teenagers. Twittering, by the way, is all the rage now. Makes me feel quite the long-winded dinosaur, just blogging away. And Stephen Fry is good at twittering, so it can't be all bad.
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of age would these be?
ReplyDeleteSorry - I meant to say. This one is late-15th century. There are earlier, less elaborate ones.
ReplyDeleteAlfred Rimmer, in his Ancient Stone Crosses of England, quotes Leland on seeing this cross (just before the dissolution of the monasteries). "There is a right faire and costly piece of worke in the market-place, made of stone, and curiously vaulted, for poor market folks to stand dry when rain cometh."
ReplyDeleteThat'll teach me to read things more thoroughly. Of course you'd already quoted Leland. Sorry.
ReplyDelete