Ancient Crosses in Irlam and Cadishead

Myth or Legend?

I recently read a story written in the mid 20th Century that the Crossfield Estate in Irlam was so-called because it was the site of one of many ancient crosses leading the way to the nearest church.
Having not seen any evidence for this, I set out to research this story and see what I could find out.

I came across a volume of The Manchester and Lancashire Antiquarian Society from 1904 and found within a detailed chapter which is probably the source of this story. The facts speak for themselves - this 'could' be the case, but there isn't really any evidence for it. However, the chapter is very interesting to any local inhabitants.

The Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society Vol.XXll-1904
The Ancient Crosses of Lancashire-The Hundred of Salford
​by Henry Taylor

A series of crosses once stood on the principal roads leading out of some of the ancient towns of the county, as at Preston and Ulverston. Such a series apparently once existed on the old road from Manchester through Pendleton to Eccles, Patricroft, and beyond.

It is not improbable that several of them were erected for devotional purposes. In mediaeval times, and especially after the Wars of the Roses, ruffianly robbers filled the country districts, bent on the plunder of merchants, who it is well known often prayed for a safe journey at wayside crosses.
 
I assume that the first cross stood on White Cross Bank, one mile west of the Manchester marketplace. The next would be at the end of Cross Lane, half a mile west from the preceding. Another half mile would bring the traveller to Pendleton Green, on which a cross stood before the present church was built.

Eccles is two miles beyond Pendleton, and here were two crosses in the marketplace. There may have been others between these villages. Patricroft is a mile west from Eccles. In all probability a cross, dedicated to St. Patrick, once stood here.

Proceeding from Patricroft, on the ancient road to Warrington, Barton Old Hall is reached at a distance of a full half mile. The ancient cross discovered here by Mr. Rowbotham is described later in these pages. The site of another cross is probably recorded by the words ''Cross Field," which we find on the ordnance map on the north side of this road-two miles south-west from Barton Cross and about half a mile short of the village of Higher Irlam.

This road skirts the vast morass called Chat Moss, a dangerous place for travellers in the old times, and this cross (and possibly others of which there is now no record) may have been placed here as guides to travellers.

Barton Old Hall

BARTON CROSS – Barton Old Hall, surrounded by a moat, was on the north side of the main road, half a mile south-west from Patricroft, and about one hundred and fifty yards east of Salt Eye Brook.

In the volume for 1893 of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society Mr. Rowbotham gives a suggested restoration of an ancient cross which at one time evidently stood near this old hall. In 1886 he discovered a portion of the shaft, which had recently been dug up not far from the hall, close to Salt Eye Brook. The head of the cross, a sculptured stone, was built into the wall of an outbuilding at Barton Hall.
 
Mr. Rowbotham writes:
 
 "The subject of the sculpture is very singular and exhibits the crowned figure of the Supreme seated within a well-carved niche and supporting a crucifix. The trefoil-cusped head of the niche is surmounted by two pinnacles and a central finial ornamented with crockets.  Apparently, the artist intended the principal figure to be represented with hands upraised in the act of benediction, but these members are now lost.
 
Heads of crosses of this type are almost invariably sculptured on all the four faces, and I believe the Barton stone was thus formerly embellished. Two of its faces are buried deep in the old ten-inch brick wall and cannot be examined.In the accompanying restoration I have endeavoured to give some idea of the appearance which this venerable landmark of our faith may have presented, when first it rose above the wayside, close by the edge of the once formidable Chat Moss."

There is some probability that Thomas del Boothe who is said to have built the chapel on Salford Bridge for the repose of his soul, who also founded a chantry in Eccles Church, and who lived at Barton Hall, may have erected this cross. He died in the last quarter of the fourteenth century.
 
(Barton Old Hall was demolished in 1879 and where it once stood is now Gardner and Sons Engineering. The parts of the cross are now said to be in Eccles Parish Church.)

LADY WELL – Cadishead. The partial disappearance of this spring is due mainly to the formation of the Manchester Ship Canal, which caused a disturbance in the natural drainage of the district about fifteen years ago.
 
Mr.Basil R.Tucker, of Cadishead, informs me that in his boyhood the Lady Well was a spring of pure sparkling water of much repute. It is a simple spring, under a hawthorn hedge, staked round with timber. The water used to gush out from a bank of glacial clay and gravel. The meadow opposite bears the name of Mill Hill. The site is about half a mile nearly due west from the village of Cadishead, and the same distance north­ west from the Mersey.

Original Sketch of the Cross from Barton Old Hall

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