fbpx
Wikipedia

High Cross, Leicestershire

April 12, 2024

Not to be confused with Highcross Leicester.

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
High Cross today
Location of High Cross, on the Warwickshire and Leicestershire border
Town/CityBorder of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, England
Coordinates52°29′37″N 1°18′19″W / 52.4935°N 1.3053°W / 52.4935; -1.3053

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.

Location edit

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]

Roman Era: Venonae edit

 
A map of the known Roman road network, highlighting the routes included in the Antonine Itinerary

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 Roman Settlement edit

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 archaelogy, 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]

Eighteenth century monument edit

 

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 Blenheim 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]

High Cross today edit

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.

Notes edit

  1. ^ Abigail Tomkins lists several academic publications dating from 1973 to 2007 which "whilst not in total agreement regarding the exact location, have all argued that the frontier between the Corieltauvi and the Dobunni lay in the northeastern part of the Avon Valley, broadly in the region of Watling Street."[3]
  2. ^ The different forms of the name reflect different analyses of the grammar in the original Latin text of the Antonine Itinerary: the original text uses "Venonis" but -is is a dative case ending, meaning the name of the settlement was Venonae, Venoni or Venona.[10]
  3. ^ The first historian to identify High Cross with Venonae was William Camden (1551-1623).[12] The Victoria County History for Leicestershire observes that "The Antonine Itinerary places Venonae at the spot where these roads [Watling Street and Fosse Way] cross, and also assigns to Venonae distances from other places known to us — Manduessedum [today Mancetter] and Bannaventa [in Northamptonshire] — which agree satisfactorily with the actual mileage, it is natural that there should have been general agreement among archaeologists, since Camden, to identify Venonae and High Cross."[13]
  4. ^ It may relate to a Celtic word denoting love or family (related to the Latin word "Venus"). Academic ALF Rivett tentatively suggests that an etymology of Venonae could be "a goddess name *Uenond, something like 'The Loveable One', used as a river-name and, with formative suffix, this applied to a town; perhaps *Uenonion." But Rivett goes on to note that "This is very hazardous."[14]

References edit

  1. ^ a b Phythian-Adams, Charles (1978). Continuity, Fields and Fission: The Making of a Midlands Parish. Leicester University Press. ISBN 978-0718520342.
  2. ^ "SITE OF VENONAE ROMAN SETTLEMENT AT HIGH CROSS". Our Warwickshire.
  3. ^ a b Tompkins, Abigail E.I. (2017). The Avon Valley in the fifth to mid-seventh centuries: contacts and coalescence in a frontier polity? (PhD thesis). Oxford University. p. 14. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
  4. ^ "'New centre of England' marked in Fenny Drayton". BBC. 2013.
  5. ^ "Geology of the country around Coventry and Nuneaton. Memoir for 1:50 000 geological sheet 169 (England and Wales)". British Geographical Survey. Retrieved 10 February 2024. "The main watershed of England crosses the district from Corley Moor in the west to Ashby Parva in the east. To the north of this divide the rivers Anker and Soar flow northwards into the Trent; to the south, the rivers Sowe, Swift, Sherbourne and Smite Brook form part of the River Avon catchment." High Cross is in the centre of this 18 mile line from Corley to Ashby Parva. See also maps in Phythian-Adams, 1978 op. cit..
  6. ^ a b "High Cross". THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 8 September 1827. Retrieved 30 January 2024 – via Gutenburg.org.
  7. ^ See for instance "ALSF Assessment of Warwickshire Aggregates". Warwickshire County Council.
  8. ^ Goodburn, R.; Hassall, M. W. C.; Tomlin, R. S. O. (1979). "Roman Britain in 1978". Britannia. 10: 296. doi:10.2307/526068.
  9. ^ Pickering, Arthur (1934). "The Roman Sites of South-West Leicestershire" (PDF). Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society. 18: 1–56.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  10. ^ Victoria County History Warwickshire. Vol. 1. 1904. p. 232.
  11. ^   One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Antonini Itinerarium". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 148.
  12. ^ Broadway, Jan (11 May 2012). "'Ocular Exploration, and Subterraneous Enquiry': developing archaeological fieldwork in the mid-seventeenth century". The Antiquaries Journal. 92. Cambridge University Press (CUP): 353–369. doi:10.1017/s0003581512000054. ISSN 0003-5815. S2CID 162308861.
  13. ^ Page, William, ed. (1907). Victoria County History of the County of Leicester. Vol. 1. p. 212.
  14. ^ Rivet, A. L. F.; Jackson, Kenneth (1970). "The British Section of the Antonine Itinerary". Britannia. 1: 34. doi:10.2307/525833.
  15. ^ Carroll, Kevin K. (1979). "The Date of Boudicca's Revolt". Britannia. 10: 197–202. doi:10.2307/526056. JSTOR 526056. S2CID 164078824.
  16. ^ "Historic England Research Records Wigston Parva Roman Fort". Heritage Gateway. Retrieved 2 March 2024.
  17. ^ Wilson, D. R.; Wright, R. P.; Hassall, M. W. C. (1971). "Roman Britain in 1970". Britannia. 2. Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, Cambridge University Press: 243–304. ISSN 0068-113X. JSTOR 525817. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
  18. ^ Webster, Graham (1980). The Roman Invasion of Britain. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-389-20107-6.
  19. ^ Greenfield, Ernest; Webster, Graham (1964). "Excavations at High Cross 1955". Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society. 40: 341. doi:10.5284/1107817.
  20. ^ Nichols, John (1807). The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester (Volume 4 Part 1: Guthlaxton Hundred). Nichols. pp. 124–127 – via Leicester University Special Collections.
  21. ^ a b Liddle, P. (2004). "Roman Small Towns in Eastern England and Beyond" (PDF). Update of a paper originally published in Roman small towns in Leicestershire, Oxbow Monographs, Vol.52, Ps81-94, 1995
  22. ^ see eg "Hinckley Road, Sapcote, Leicestershire Archaeological Excavation Report" (PDF). Oxford Archaelogy. 2020. p. 29.
  23. ^ OS Landranger Map 140 : Leicester, Coventry & Rugby: (1:50 000) ISBN 0319262383
  24. ^ "Parishes (December 2016) Full Clipped Boundaries in England and Wales". Open Geography portalx (UK Government).

External links edit

  • . Roman Britain. Archived from the original on 10 October 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  • The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. X, No. 272, published 8 September 1827
  • Burbage the Centre of England, Sylvia Whitworth, Burbage Heritage group.

April 12, 2024
high, cross, leicestershire, confused, with, highcross, leicester, high, cross, name, given, crossroads, roman, roads, watling, street, fosse, border, between, leicestershire, warwickshire, england, naturally, strategic, high, point, high, cross, central, cros. Not to be confused with Highcross Leicester 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 CrossHigh Cross todayLocation of High Cross on the Warwickshire and Leicestershire borderTown CityBorder of Warwickshire and Leicestershire EnglandCoordinates52 29 37 N 1 18 19 W 52 4935 N 1 3053 W 52 4935 1 3053High 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 Contents 1 Location 2 Roman Era Venonae 2 1 The Roman Settlement 3 Eighteenth century monument 4 High Cross today 5 Notes 6 References 7 External linksLocation editHigh 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 Roman Era Venonae edit nbsp A map of the known Roman road network highlighting the routes included in the Antonine ItineraryWhile 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 Roman Settlement edit 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 archaelogy 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 Eighteenth century monument edit nbsp 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 Blenheim 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 High Cross today editIn 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 Notes edit Abigail Tomkins lists several academic publications dating from 1973 to 2007 which whilst not in total agreement regarding the exact location have all argued that the frontier between the Corieltauvi and the Dobunni lay in the northeastern part of the Avon Valley broadly in the region of Watling Street 3 The different forms of the name reflect different analyses of the grammar in the original Latin text of the Antonine Itinerary the original text uses Venonis but is is a dative case ending meaning the name of the settlement was Venonae Venoni or Venona 10 The first historian to identify High Cross with Venonae was William Camden 1551 1623 12 The Victoria County History for Leicestershire observes that The Antonine Itinerary places Venonae at the spot where these roads Watling Street and Fosse Way cross and also assigns to Venonae distances from other places known to us Manduessedum today Mancetter and Bannaventa in Northamptonshire which agree satisfactorily with the actual mileage it is natural that there should have been general agreement among archaeologists since Camden to identify Venonae and High Cross 13 It may relate to a Celtic word denoting love or family related to the Latin word Venus Academic ALF Rivett tentatively suggests that an etymology of Venonae could be a goddess name Uenond something like The Loveable One used as a river name and with formative suffix this applied to a town perhaps Uenonion But Rivett goes on to note that This is very hazardous 14 References edit a b Phythian Adams Charles 1978 Continuity Fields and Fission The Making of a Midlands Parish Leicester University Press ISBN 978 0718520342 SITE OF VENONAE ROMAN SETTLEMENT AT HIGH CROSS Our Warwickshire a b Tompkins Abigail E I 2017 The Avon Valley in the fifth to mid seventh centuries contacts and coalescence in a frontier polity PhD thesis Oxford University p 14 Retrieved 10 February 2024 New centre of England marked in Fenny Drayton BBC 2013 Geology of the country around Coventry and Nuneaton Memoir for 1 50 000 geological sheet 169 England and Wales British Geographical Survey Retrieved 10 February 2024 The main watershed of England crosses the district from Corley Moor in the west to Ashby Parva in the east To the north of this divide the rivers Anker and Soar flow northwards into the Trent to the south the rivers Sowe Swift Sherbourne and Smite Brook form part of the River Avon catchment High Cross is in the centre of this 18 mile line from Corley to Ashby Parva See also maps in Phythian Adams 1978 op cit a b High Cross THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE AMUSEMENT AND INSTRUCTION 8 September 1827 Retrieved 30 January 2024 via Gutenburg org See for instance ALSF Assessment of Warwickshire Aggregates Warwickshire County Council Goodburn R Hassall M W C Tomlin R S O 1979 Roman Britain in 1978 Britannia 10 296 doi 10 2307 526068 Pickering Arthur 1934 The Roman Sites of South West Leicestershire PDF Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 18 1 56 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint date and year link Victoria County History Warwickshire Vol 1 1904 p 232 nbsp One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Chisholm Hugh ed 1911 Antonini Itinerarium Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 2 11th ed Cambridge University Press p 148 Broadway Jan 11 May 2012 Ocular Exploration and Subterraneous Enquiry developing archaeological fieldwork in the mid seventeenth century The Antiquaries Journal 92 Cambridge University Press CUP 353 369 doi 10 1017 s0003581512000054 ISSN 0003 5815 S2CID 162308861 Page William ed 1907 Victoria County History of the County of Leicester Vol 1 p 212 Rivet A L F Jackson Kenneth 1970 The British Section of the Antonine Itinerary Britannia 1 34 doi 10 2307 525833 Carroll Kevin K 1979 The Date of Boudicca s Revolt Britannia 10 197 202 doi 10 2307 526056 JSTOR 526056 S2CID 164078824 Historic England Research Records Wigston Parva Roman Fort Heritage Gateway Retrieved 2 March 2024 Wilson D R Wright R P Hassall M W C 1971 Roman Britain in 1970 Britannia 2 Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Cambridge University Press 243 304 ISSN 0068 113X JSTOR 525817 Retrieved 18 February 2024 Webster Graham 1980 The Roman Invasion of Britain p 162 ISBN 978 0 389 20107 6 Greenfield Ernest Webster Graham 1964 Excavations at High Cross 1955 Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 40 341 doi 10 5284 1107817 Nichols John 1807 The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester Volume 4 Part 1 Guthlaxton Hundred Nichols pp 124 127 via Leicester University Special Collections a b Liddle P 2004 Roman Small Towns in Eastern England and Beyond PDF Update of a paper originally published in Roman small towns in Leicestershire Oxbow Monographs Vol 52 Ps81 94 1995 see eg Hinckley Road Sapcote Leicestershire Archaeological Excavation Report PDF Oxford Archaelogy 2020 p 29 OS Landranger Map 140 Leicester Coventry amp Rugby 1 50 000 ISBN 0319262383 Parishes December 2016 Full Clipped Boundaries in England and Wales Open Geography portalx UK Government External links edit Venonis Roman Britain Archived from the original on 10 October 2018 Retrieved 22 November 2019 The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction Vol X No 272 published 8 September 1827 Burbage the Centre of England Sylvia Whitworth Burbage Heritage group Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title High Cross Leicestershire amp oldid 1215519352, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.