It is an ironic fate of once unignorable medieval crosses, that they often now slumber in almost total obscurity. There are exceptions, of course - one considers the crosses at Derwen, Trelawnyd and Tremeirchion, and one can gain a lasting sense of just how dominant these architectural delights were in a medieval landscape. But, more often than not, where the remains of medieval crosses are today extant, they are worn to a stump, by long ages of weather and neglect, by iconoclastic violence or by the repurposing of them into unoffensive sundials, topped with a gnomon rather than a tabernacle.
The Gresford medieval cross sits now at a crossroads, on the Wrexham to Chester Old Road, and the Gresford, Pant-yr-Ochain road. If travelling the road, one would need to know it was there to notice it. Has it always been there? No one seems to know for certain - there are those that as a consequence have considered it a wayside cross, and its present position obviously suggests this. As worn and wearied as it is, I think the remains of the sturdy, sizeable plinth and base are suggestive of a once most impressive cross. It reminds me somewhat of St Meugan’s Churchyard Cross at Llanrhudd. Could it once have stood in the churchyard of All Saints’ Church, further into Gresford? Or possibly at the original Gresford crossroads, which was by the church? Of course it could. No one knows for sure.
A worn and wearied thing, this medieval cross - the base stone and plinth suggesting it was once of some stature.
What remains then, is a sandstone base of some 0.7m in height, worked into a wearied octagon, with a socket hole in which the now long lost shaft would have been. The time smoothed shade of figures are apparent - faceless ghosts now, but discernible still. The base stone sits on a plinth made up of three broken slabs and one much smaller stone. As for its age? Well, it's likely 15th century, perhaps a little earlier. Its remains make dating something of a guessing game.
Faceless ghosts staring out from the distant past.
But it’s there - still. A tantalising reminder of a different age, different values - a different way of life in time. As you stand by this cross, with the metal movement of the 20th and 21st centuries rattling by, it's worth casting out your thinking to a time way back then, when crosses, of whatever variety, dominated the thoughts of those that passed them.
Further Reading
Alfred N. Palmer, A History of the Old Parish of Gresford in the Counties of Denbigh and Flint, Archaeologia Cambrensis, (1904)
R. J. Silvester & R. Hankinson, Medieval Crosses and Crossheads, CPAT Report No. 1036, (2010)
R. J. Silvester, Welsh medieval freestanding crosses, Archaeologia Cambrensis 162, (2013)
Gresford Conservation Area Assessment & Management Plan, Wrexham CBC, (2009)
​
​
​