High Cross | |
---|---|
Town/City | Border of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, England |
Coordinates | 52°29′37″N1°18′19″W / 52.4935°N 1.3053°W |
High Cross is the name given to the crossroads of the Roman roads of Watling Street (now the A5) and Fosse Way on the border between Leicestershire and Warwickshire, England. A naturally strategic high point, High Cross was "the central cross roads" of Anglo-Saxon and Roman Britain. [1] It was the site of a Romano-British settlement known as Venonae or Venonis, with an accompanying fort. [2]
High Cross has marked several frontiers through history. In the Iron Age the area is believed to have been the frontier between the Corieltauvi and Dobunni tribes. [nb 1] In the Roman era, the Fosse Way delimited Roman settlement in the early period of occupation. [3] In the later Anglo-Saxon period, Watling Street was the border between the Viking controlled Danelaw and Saxon territory. Reflecting this, the boundaries of four parishes (boundaries which began to be established from the Anglo-Saxon period or even earlier) [1] still meet today at High Cross, while the border between Leicester and Warwickshire, established in the early 11th century, reflects the Danelaw boundary.
High Cross is located eight miles from the point (at Lindley Hall Farm in Fenny Drayton) today identified by the Ordnance Survey as the geographical centre of England. [4] High Cross is the midpoint on the main watershed of England: it is situated above three river valleys. The Avon flows southwest to the Severn Estuary and the Irish sea at Bristol; the Anker flows West; and the Soar flows North. Both the Soar and the Anker, via the Trent and then the Humber, flow ultimately to the North Sea at Kingston on Hull. [5]
As denoted by its name, High Cross is at the top of a hill. An account of the site in a popular magazine of 1827 claimed that, "The ground here is so high, and the surrounding country so low and flat, that it is said, fifty-seven churches may be seen from this spot by the help of a glass [telescope]." [6] This extensive area of relatively flat land is, on the Warwickshire side, between Rugby and Bedworth/ Nuneaton, referred to by geographers as the High Cross Plateau. [7]
While the exact point of the Roman Fosse Way and Watling Street junction is unknown, historians agree to its location around the current meeting point of the two roads, High Cross. [8] [9] The Roman name Venonae (also sometimes Venonis or Venoni) [nb 2] is known from the Antonine Itinerary, a contemporary register of the stations and distances along various Roman roads likely produced at the end of the third century. [11] [nb 3] The etymology of the name Venonae is uncertain. [nb 4]
Venonae may have been the meeting point for Roman regiments in their final battle against Boudica, sometimes called 'The Battle of Watling Street' which would have been fought nearby. [15]
The first Roman structure at High Cross was a fort, located about 1km to the North West from the current High Cross, dating to the first few years of the Roman occupation (AD 44-47). [16] This was in the period when the Fosse Way represented the limits (if not a formal frontier) of Roman colonisation. The fort predated the Roman construction of Watling Street in the 60sAD, which built over some of the structures of the fort. The fort had two entrances on the North West and south-east sides with a timber gateway on the South East. There was a turf rampart, 3 meters wide and V-shaped ditch. "Internal features located were the cobbled intervallum-street [a perimeter street that ran around the ramparts], part of a barrack-building, and a water-tank near the east angle". [17] The fort was discovered in the late 1960s from the air by the pioneer of aerial archaeology, Kenneth St Joseph. [18]
A settlement around the current High Cross site evolved somewhat later than the fort with evidence showing "continuous Romano-British occupation from the late-first to the fourth centuries A.D." [19] Historians of the seventeen and eighteenth century reported very extensive, visible Roman ruins around High Cross, leading to belief that Venonae was a major Roman settlement. [20] However, modern archaeology, undertaken since the start of the 20th century, has found more limited evidence. Historians today usually describes Venonae as a "small town." [21] [22] A 2004 map of the Roman settlement based on the archaeological fieldwork shows - as well as the fort - two enclosures and fortifications in the immediate area around the crossroads and remains of a villa 450 metres due east of the crossroad. [21]
A stone monunent at High Cross was built in 1712. Funded by the local landowner, the Earl of Denbigh, it celebrated the victories against France by the Duke of Marlborough as well as marking the centre of Roman Britain. It consisted of four Doric columns with an orb and cross above. It was struck by lightning in 1791 and only the plinth remains today. The stone monument was preceded by a wooden cross and was the site of a medieval gibbet.
The two Latin inscriptions on either side the monument have been translated as:
The noblemen and gentry, ornaments of the neighbouring counties of Warwick and Leicester, at the instances of the Right Honourable Basil Earl of Denbeigh, have caused this pillar to be erected in grateful as well as perpetual remembrance of Peace at last restored by her Majesty Queen Anne, in the year of our Lord, 1712..
If, traveller, you search for the footsteps of the ancient Romans, here you may behold them. For here their most celebrated ways, crossing one another, extend to the utmost boundaries of Britain; here the Vennones kept their quarters; and at the distance of one mile from hence, Claudius, a certain commander of a cohort, seems to have had a camp, towards the street, and towards the foss a tomb. [6]
In modern times, this section of Watling Street is now a dual carriageway section of the A5, the southern part of the Fosse Way is a B road, and the northern route of the Fosse is now a track which is a part of a long-distance path called the Leicestershire Round. [23]
Four civil parish boundaries meet at High Cross: the Warwickshire parishes of Wibtoft and Copston Magna (historically part of Monks Kirby parish) and the Leicestershire parishes of Sharnford and Claybrooke Parva (historically part of the single Claybrooke parish with the closely adjacent village of Claybrooke Magna). [24]
High Cross is depicted on the coat of arms of Blaby District Council, which is the local authority for the area. Two black diagonal lines on the shield represent Fosse Way and Watling Street.
Watling Street is a historic route in England that crosses the River Thames at London and which was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main Roman roads in Britannia. The route linked Dover and London in the southeast, and continued northwest via St Albans to Wroxeter. The line of the road was later the southwestern border of the Danelaw with Wessex and Mercia, and Watling Street was numbered as one of the major highways of medieval England.
The Fosse Way was a Roman road built in Britain during the first and second centuries AD that linked Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) in the southwest and Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to the northeast, via Lindinis (Ilchester), Aquae Sulis (Bath), Corinium (Cirencester), and Ratae Corieltauvorum (Leicester).
Icknield Street or Ryknild Street is a Roman road in England, with a route roughly south-west to north-east. It runs from the Fosse Way at Bourton on the Water in Gloucestershire to Templeborough in South Yorkshire. It passes through Alcester, Studley, Redditch, Metchley Fort, Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Lichfield, Burton upon Trent and Derby.
Manduessedum or Manduesedum was a Roman fort and later a civilian small town in the Roman Province of Britannia. It was located on and immediately to the east of the site of the modern village of Mancetter, located in the English county of Warwickshire, close to the modern town of Atherstone. The name is of Romano-Celtic origin, and is likely derived from the Gaulish essedum, meaning 'chariot', whilst the first element mandu was common in Gaulish place names, but its meaning is obscure.
Tripontium was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Churchover in the English county of Warwickshire and partly in Leicestershire, some 3.4 miles north-east of Rugby and 3.1 miles south of Lutterworth.
Roman roads in Britannia were initially designed for military use, created by the Roman army during the nearly four centuries (AD 43–410) that Britannia was a province of the Roman Empire.
The Forest of Arden is a former forest and culturally defined area located in the English West Midlands, that in antiquity and into the Early Modern Period included much of Warwickshire, and parts of Shropshire, Staffordshire, the West Midlands, and Worcestershire. It is associated with William Shakespeare as a territory of his youth, and the setting of some of his drama.
Monks Kirby is a village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The population of the parish is 445. Monks Kirby is located around one mile east of the Fosse Way, around 8 miles north-west of Rugby, seven miles north-east of Coventry and six miles west of Lutterworth. Administratively it forms part of the borough of Rugby. One of the largest and most important villages in this part of Warwickshire in the Anglo-Saxon and later medieval period, the village continued to be a local administrative centre into the early 20th century.
Bannaventa or Benaventa was a Romano-British fortified town which was on the Roman road later called Watling Street, which today is here, as in most places, the A5 road. Bannaventa straddles the boundaries of Norton and Whilton, Northamptonshire, England, villages highly clustered 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) and double that away, respectively.
This article is intended to give an overview of the history of Leicestershire.
This is about the history of the County of Warwick situated in the English Midlands. Historically, bounded to the north-west by Staffordshire, by Leicestershire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the east, Worcestershire to the west, Oxfordshire to the south, Gloucestershire to the south-west, an exclave of Derbyshire to the far north, and less than 400 yards from the border with Shropshire in the far west.
Via Devana is the name given to a Roman Road in England that ran from Colchester in the south-east, through Cambridge in the interior, and on to Chester in the north-west. These were important Roman military centres and it is conjectured that the main reason the road was constructed was military rather than civilian. The Latin name for Chester is Deva and 'Via Devana' is thus 'The Chester Road'. Colchester was Colonia Victricensis, 'the City of Victory', and lays claim to be the oldest Roman city in Britain. The Via Devana had little civilian rationale and the road eventually fell into disuse as it was not possible to maintain extensive public works following withdrawal of the last Roman legion from Britain in 407. As a result, its route is difficult to find today, especially in its more northern reaches. It is omitted from some historians' maps for this reason but most nowadays accept its existence. The undocumented name Via Devana was coined by Charles Mason, D.D., of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was also rector of Orwell, Cambridgeshire, and Woodwardian Professor of Fossils at Cambridge University from 1734. During his life, Mason compiled a complete map of Cambridgeshire which was later published in 1808, long after his death.
Wibtoft is a small village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The village was originally within the civil parish of Claybrooke Magna in Leicestershire. According to the 2021 Census, it had a population of 62.
Ullesthorpe is a small village and civil parish situated in the Harborough district in southern Leicestershire. Ullesthorpe is noted for its historic background with a mill, disused railway station and traces of a medieval settlement evident on the edge of the village.
Sharnford is a village and civil parish in Blaby of Leicestershire. The parish has a population of about 1,000, measured at the 2011 census as 985. The village is about four miles east of Hinckley, and is near to Aston Flamville, Wigston Parva and Sapcote.
Copston Magna is a very small village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire, England. It is located around 9 miles (14 km) northwest of the town of Rugby, 6 miles (9.7 km) southeast of Nuneaton. Though it is only 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of the larger village of Wolvey, Copston Magna was historically part of the parish of Monks Kirby, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) to the south. Copston is located close to the ancient site of High Cross, on the border between Warwickshire and Leicestershire, where the Roman roads of Watling Street and Fosse Way cross each other. In the 2021 Census, the parish had a population of 41.
Claybrooke Magna is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England, close to the A5 trunk road. The village is located between junctions 20 and 21 of the M1, and the towns of Leicester, Rugby, Lutterworth and Market Harborough are easily accessible.
The River Sence is a river which flows in Leicestershire, England. The tributaries of the Sence, including the Saint and Tweed, fan out over much of western Leicestershire from Charnwood Forest and Coalville in the north-east to Hinckley and almost to Watling Street in the south and south-west. Its watershed almost coincides with Hinckley and Bosworth Borough of Leicestershire, which was formed in 1974 by amalgamation of Market Bosworth Rural District and Hinckley Urban District. It flows into the Anker, which in turn flows into the River Tame. It is part of the wider River Trent catchment, which covers much of central England. In 1881, Sebastian Evans wrote that the usual names for this river were Shenton Brook and Sibson Brook.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Leicester, the county town of Leicestershire, in England.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link)