Old Crosses and Lychgates — Reading Notes

A Typology Built on Anatomy

Vallance insists his classification is 'original' and 'presents the subject in an entirely new aspect.' He avoids the usual regional or chronological groupings, instead analyzing crosses by their 'anatomical form and structure.' This approach allows him to compare, say, the Eleanor crosses not by their royal patron but by their skeletal design: the 'triangular shape' of one is dismissed as 'more diverting as an ingenious planning experiment than admirable as a model for reproduction,' while another is praised for its 'dignified reticence of contrasted plain spaces.' The language is that of an architectural critic, not a mere antiquary. He even names individual masons—John of Battle, William of Ireland, Alexander of Abingdon—and tracks payments recorded in 'royal account rolls' from 1291 to 1293, grounding his aesthetic judgments in documented craftsmanship.

The Eleanor Crosses as Case Studies

Vallance devotes considerable attention to the series of Eleanor crosses erected after Queen Eleanor of Castile's death in 1290. He draws on surviving account rolls to detail costs: John of Battle contracted to build crosses at Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, and St Albans for £95 each; the queen's statues cost five marks (£3. 6s. 8d.) apiece; Purbeck marble from Corfe was used for several crosses. Yet the text is as much about loss as survival. The Lincoln cross, which cost about £134, has vanished—'not a vestige of it now remains.' The Grantham cross is known only from a 1776 note by Dr William Stukeley, who was shown 'a stone carved with foliage work, said to be part of it.' Vallance's tone is matter-of-fact, but the accumulation of vanished monuments gives the survey an elegiac undercurrent.

Vernacular Crosses and Local Records

Beyond the royal commissions, Vallance gathers evidence from local historians and travellers. For Stamford, Lincolnshire, he quotes Richard Butcher's 1646 description of 'an ancient cross of freestone, of a very curious fabric, having many scutcheons insculped,' and notes that by the 1659 edition the cross was already referred to in the past tense. A note from R. Symond in August 1645 records shields carved on the cross: 'England, Ponthieu' and others. These fragmentary sources—a stone shown to Stukeley, a sentence in a town history, a traveller's jotting—are the threads from which Vallance reconstructs a lost landscape. He does not embellish; he presents the evidence and lets the gaps speak. The effect is a quiet demonstration of how much has been erased, and how much depends on the chance survival of a single observer's note.

The Author's Critical Voice

Vallance is not shy of strong opinion. He contrasts the 'dignified reticence' of the Northampton and Waltham crosses with the 'caged appearance' of another design, whose 'intercepting a direct view' of the statues 'infallibly detracts from the prominence which is their proper due.' The triangular cross, he declares flatly, 'is an architectural eccentricity.' This critical edge extends to modern work: the preface laments that too many contemporary monuments betray 'utter bankruptcy' by breaking with tradition and expressing themselves in 'wayward eccentricity and ugly sensationalism.' Vallance's ideal is a 'following of time-hallowed precedent'—not slavish copying, but an informed adaptation that respects structural logic. His voice, precise and occasionally acerbic, gives the book a personality rare in architectural surveys.

Vallance's study rewards readers who attend to his architectural vocabulary and his willingness to rank examples by design quality. The book is not a neutral inventory but a polemic for tradition, grounded in close observation of stonework and documentary records. Readers interested in the Eleanor crosses will find detailed cost accounts and attributions to named masons; those drawn to vanished monuments will encounter a ghostly geography of lost crosses. The author's original classification system invites comparison with surviving structures, making the volume a useful companion for field visits—provided one is prepared to encounter Vallance's own strong judgments along the way.

That rainy afternoon, I kept returning to Vallance’s sketches of weathered stone—his quiet insistence on dignity over flourish. By evening, my mind had drifted from crosses to another kind of steadfast figure, one whose own story felt equally shaped by restraint and resolve. I found myself reaching for The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 — Context and Discussion, and the rain seemed to soften its edges.