Details

The monument includes a wayside cross, set into a roadside hedge beside the entrance to Pendrea, to the south west of the settlement of St Buryan. The cross survives as a roughly circular socket stone with a diameter of 1.1m and measuring up to 0.3m thick set into the field boundary on its edge. The socket itself is 0.3m long, 0.15m wide and 0.2m deep with rounded ends. It was found at Pendrea sometime prior to 189,6 when it was recorded by Langdon and placed in its current location by 1908.

Sources: HER:-
PastScape Monument No:-422714

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Wayside crosses are one of several types of Christian cross erected during the medieval period, mostly from the 9th to 15th centuries AD. In addition to serving the function of reiterating and reinforcing the Christian faith amongst those who passed the cross and of reassuring the traveller, wayside crosses often fulfilled a role as waymarkers, especially in difficult and otherwise unmarked terrain. The crosses might be on regularly used routes linking ordinary settlements or on routes which might have a more specifically religious function, including providing access to religious sites for parishioners and funeral processions. Wayside crosses vary considerably in form and decoration but several regional types have been identified. The Cornish wayside crosses form one such group. The commonest type includes a round, or `wheel', head on the faces of which various forms of cross were carved. The design was sometimes supplemented with a relief figure of Christ. Less common forms include the `Latin' cross, where the cross-head itself is shaped within the arms of an unenclosed cross and, much rarer, the simple slab with a low-relief cross on both faces. Over 400 crosses of all types are recorded in Cornwall. Wayside crosses contribute significantly to our understanding of medieval routeways, settlement patterns and the development of sculptural traditions and their survival is somewhat differential because of periods of religious turbulence during the Reformation when many were subject to damage or partial destruction by iconoclasts.

Source: Historic England