Volume 9: Cheshire and Lancashire
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Current Display: Burnley (Godley Lane) 1, Lancashire
Overview
Object type: Cross-shaft and part of -head [1]
Measurements: H. 269 cm (106 in); W. 51 > 30.5 cm (20 > 12 in); D. 30.5 > 20 cm (12 > 8 in)
Stone type: Yellowish grey (5Y 7/2), poorly sorted, clast-supported, quartz sandstone. The sub-angular to sub-rounded clasts range from medium-grained (0.3 mm) to very coarse-grained (2.0 mm), but are mostly coarse-grained in the range 0.6 to 1.0 mm; a few scattered clasts up to 5.0 mm. Millstone Grit, Carboniferous
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 429-32
Corpus volume reference: Vol 9 p. 168-9
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Present Location
On a small triangle of land currently the property of Burnley College of Higher Education, at junction of Active Way, Church Street and Caleb Road (A679 and A682: SD 843331)
Evidence for Discovery
At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was described as sited 'adjoining the town and near the chapel' (Whitaker 1800–1, 297). Taylor (H. 1906, 110) quoted the OS map of 1848 as evidence that the cross was originally situated at Godley Lane (SD 845329), some 300 yards north-east of the parish church. It is located there in the caption of the plate in Wilkinson (1856, 19), but was in its present position by 1906.
Church Dedication
Present Condition
Transverse arms broken away
Description
The shaft has slightly chamfered edges but carries no decoration. The head was probably of a fan-like (penannular) form with curved terminals (type E11). Both broad faces carry a central domed boss; on face A this is surrounded by a ring.
Discussion
Crosses such as this are difficult to date, though the encircled boss at the centre of a head is a familiar pre-Norman motif. The chamfering of the edges might, however, suggest a late date.
Date
Probably eleventh century
References
Whitaker 1800–1, 297; Whitaker 1818, 322; Wilkinson 1856, 19, fig.; Baines 1868–70, 32; Whitaker 1872–6, II, 157; Waddington 1884, 90–4; (—) 1885b, 228; Browne 1887a, 11–12; Jackson 1889, 32; Scholes 1892, 82; Allen 1894, 4; Allen 1895, 135; Harrison 1896, 4; Taylor, H. 1898, 42; Taylor, H. 1900, 50–1, pl. facing 50; Garstang 1906, 265; Taylor, H. 1906, 4, 110–11, pl. facing 110; Ditchfield 1909, 116; Fishwick and Ditchfield 1909, I, 92; Wickham 1915, 174; Wallis 1932, 40, 44; Bennett 1946, 126; Edwards, B. 1978a, 57; Kenyon 1991, 102; Crosby 1998, 30; Reeder 1999, 17–18, fig. 5; Noble 2004, 42, fig. 45; Coatsworth 2008, 266, 267
Endnotes
[1] The following are unpublished manuscript references to Burnley 1: BL Add. MS 37550, items 591, 598 (Romilly Allen collection).
