89 
THE CROSSES IN AND AROUND BURNLEY. 
A paper read by J. ARTHUR WADDINGTON, 
October 25th, 1881. 
Of the memorials of the olden times, coming under the 
generic designation of crosses, comparatively few now remain 
in a fair state of preservation in our own district, and numbers 
of them have disappeared altogether. But few of these relics 
if left unmolested would have succumbed to the ravages of time, 
and we must therefore attribute their annihilation, in 
nearly every instance, to the thoughtlessness the ignorance, 
or the wilful destructiveness of man. Many of the crosses were 
removed before the commencement of the present century, but 
in far too many instances it has been found that those which were 
standing within the memory of the present generation have been 
destroyed with a ruthless Vandalism which cannot be too strongly 
condemned. It must be a source of regret to all lovers of 
antiquities that these landmarks in our past history should have 
been broken down, and that no trace of their form or characteristics 
should have been left to us, and the consideration of these facts 
suggested the desirability of recording the present condition of those 
crosses which have escaped destruction, and tracing as faras possible 
their past history. This, then, along with some few generalremarks 
upon the subject of crosses, is the object and intention of the 
present paper. Rough drawings have been prepared of some 
of these monuments, from which it is believed that the mem- 
bers will be able to get a clearer idea of the character of the 
remains, than from the most minute verbal descriptions.* It 
may perhaps be well to state at this point to what extent 
of country the title of the paper is intended to apply. If a line 
be drawn from Burnley to Whalley on the west, and Todmorden 
on the south-east, with one exception the crosses lie to the north 
of that line, and with two exceptions the county boundary will 
form our limit in the other directions. 
*These diagrams have been reproduced by photolithography, and being 
drawn in each case to the same scale, the relative proportions of the crosses 
will be determined at a glance. 
