The field had been known as Maes y Groes for a long time before the remains of a medieval cross were found here, within the bulwark of the River Dee. The field, now adjacent to the River at a point known as the Turn of Dee was said to have been the spot where the monks of the famous and now lost monastery at Bangor met with St Augustine, presumably in order to reject the authority of the Church of Rome on the dating of Easter and customs. The finding of a lost medieval cross here has been described then as,
‘A pure but happy coincidence’.
V. Lavis-Jones, A History of Bangor Isycoed (2013), p.82
Sometime in early 1849, the River had been in flood - higher than was usual, which must then have been quite some flood, given the Dee’s habit of dramatic heights. The waters had made a breach within the banks of the River and exposed the remains of the cross.
‘It consists of a large square pedestal with the dexter limb broken off; the shaft is about nine feet high.’
T. H. Greasley Puleston, History of Worthenbury, (1895), p. 48
It is not clear where it was moved, immediately subsequent to its finding. But a letter shared with the Cambrian Archaeological Society in August 1849 by W. Wynne Ffoulkes tells of correspondence with a J. H. Montagu Luxmore.[1] At the time of writing, the cross was being kept within Luxmore’s garden, having been moved there due to it being, ‘much mutilated since it was found’.
The remains of the Bangor medieval cross now lie beside the pulpit within St Dunawd's - alongside a 14th century sepulchral slab and the remains of a quern stone.
What this mutilation amounted to is not known, since Luxmore’s description of the cross details far more of the monument than what we have remaining to us today.
‘The base is a rough unornamented stone; the shaft is octangular; the arms of the cross are broken off; the top is circular’.
I.H. Montagu Luxmore, q. W. Wynne Ffoulkes, Archaeologia Cambrensis, October 1849, p. 325-326
How long the remains of the medieval cross remained in Luxmore’s garden is not known,[2] but the cross that eventually found itself within the Church of St Marcella and St Deiniol’s in Marchwiel, along with a plaque remembering its discovery, was a significant shadow of that which was originally found and removed to Marchwiel in order, rather ironically, to protect it from, ‘the careless blows of the ignorant’.
It was returned to Bangor on Dee in 1988, and placed beside the pulpit in St Dunawd’s, along with the plaque, alongside a discovered quern stone and a rather wonderful 14th century sepulchral slab. The remains today amount to a small portion of the octagonal shaft, the part of one octagonal arm and a top which has a carinated, cylindrical form with a flat top, perhaps designed to have something placed on it. As said, a fraction of that which was said to have been discovered and moved to Luxmore’s garden in 1849.
As to its date, opinions vary - which comes, I am sure, as no surprise to anyone. Luxmore believed it was of the 12th century - based on what information is not known. A safer date of the 15th century was suggested by the Cambrian Archaeological Society, based rather largely on the form of the remains we have. Some would like the cross to have been related to the short lived, enormous and now lost Bangor Monastery of the 7th century, but that is highly unlikely. Currently, it is not thought to have been a churchyard cross, but more likely a boundary cross, marking the extent of the parish - an opinion which might well explain where it was found on the Overton Road to the south of the village, and indeed its being discarded in the River there after being thrown down at some in the whenever. Perhaps then, the name of the field and fields here at the turn of the Dee, does in fact remember the presence of this cross.
Medieval crosses were once ubiquitous through North East Wales. It is thought every churchyard would have been adorned with a cross - either of stone or perhaps wood. But rural and urban crosses were also common - wayside crosses, town crosses, market crosses and indeed boundary crosses. But most of these wonders have now been lost, a victim not only of the religious turmoil of the 16th and 17th centuries, but also of time weathering and simple neglect. What we have now is a fraction of the crosses that once would have been seen everywhere. What we have now of this cross, perhaps just one of several that once stood in Bangor Parish, still serves to remind, perhaps with just a twitch of imagination, how very important they once were.
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Footnotes
1. J. H. Montagu Luxmore was the rector of St Marcella and St Deiniol’s in Marchwiel between 1824-1860.
2. As an interesting aside, when the Royal Commission visited Marchwiel in 1911 and found what they believed was the churchyard cross to the south of the chancel of St Marcella and St Deiniol’s, they stated that they had also found ruined parts of the cross in the rookery of a nearby garden. While they do not state whose garden this was, it is tempting to wonder as to whether this garden was that of the rectors of the Church, and thus that of J.H. Montagu Luxmore.
Further Reading
Archaeological Cambrensis, (October 1849)
Archaeologica Cambrensis (October 1874)
Heneb Historic Environment Record, Bangor Cross Fragment
V. Lavis-Jones, A History of Bangor Isycoed, Bridge Books, Wrexham, (2013)
E. Owen, Old Stone Crosses of the Vale of Clwyd, Oswestry & Wrexham, (1886)
RCAHM, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire, Denbigh, London, (1914)
RCAHM, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire, Flint, London, (1912)
R. J. Silvester & R. Hankinson, Medieval Crosses and Crossheads, CPAT Report No. 1036, (March 2010)
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