172 



The Bristol High Cross at Stourhead, Wilis. 



somewhat fuller technical description than 

 appears to have been previously done. 



The Cross was first erected in 1373, at the 

 intersection of the four principal streets of 

 Bristol (where a former " High Cross " stood, 

 as mentioned in a MS. Calendar of 1247) to 

 commemorate the separation of Bristol from 

 Gloucester, by a charter granted to the bur- 

 gesses by Edward III. 1 By comparing it 

 with the Eleanor Crosses, and by the light of 

 documentary evidence which exists as to the 

 missing parts of these, as well as with other 

 erections more nearly its contemporaries, we 

 can arrive at a very good idea of what the 

 Bristol Cross was at that time. It consisted 

 of a bench-table forming a seat, and possibly 

 two or three steps (all of which were probably 

 pared off by degrees as the demand on the 

 space around increased) on which stood the 

 lower stage A (see hey diagram) which was 

 square on plan, and, unlike the existing 

 ^Eleanor Crosses which had the lower stage 

 solid, was open, and formed by four piers, 

 each composed of a diagonal buttress with attached shafts, and a 

 central shaft supporting an elaborately groined canopy, with a 

 cusped arch surmounted by crocketted pediment and finial on each 

 of the four sides. 



Above this was a base of tabernacle work (B) of sufficient height 

 to lift the statues above the finials of the pediments in front of 

 them, with a central core and corbels for the figures ; the diagonal 

 buttresses of the lower stage being continued up past it and sur- 

 mounted by crocketted finials. This base supports the stage of 

 effigies (C) which is the raison tfetre of the design. Pooley, in 

 his Crosses of Gloucestershire, published in 1868 (his information 



1 Barrett's History of Bristol (1789), p. 473. 



