Reasons for Designation
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 having a more specifically religious
function, including those providing access to religious sites for parishioners
and funeral processions, or marking long-distance routes frequented on
pilgrimages.
Over 350 wayside crosses are known nationally, concentrated in south west
England throughout Cornwall and on Dartmoor where they form the commonest type
of stone cross. A small group also occurs on the North York Moors. Relatively
few examples have been recorded elsewhere and these are generally confined to
remote moorland locations.
Outside Cornwall almost all wayside crosses take the form of a `Latin' cross,
in which the cross-head itself is shaped within the projecting arms of an
unenclosed cross. In Cornwall wayside crosses vary considerably in form and
decoration. The commonest type includes a round, or `wheel', head on the faces
of which various forms of cross or related designs were carved in relief or
incised, the spaces between the cross arms possibly pierced. The design was
sometimes supplemented with a relief figure of Christ and the shaft might bear
decorative panels and motifs. Less common forms in Cornwall include the
`Latin' cross and, much rarer, the simple slab with a low relief cross on both
faces. Rare examples of wheel-head and slab-form crosses also occur within the
North York Moors group. Most wayside crosses have either a simple socketed
base or show no evidence for a separate base at all.
Wayside crosses contribute significantly to our understanding of medieval
religious customs and sculptural traditions and to our knowledge of medieval
routeways and settlement patterns. All wayside crosses which survive as earth-
fast monuments, except those which are extremely damaged and removed from
their original locations, are considered worthy of protection.
The Doublestiles Cross has survived well as a good example of the rare slab
form of cross whose thick, rounded section is a rare feature of that cross
type. Despite dramatic landscape changes around it, the cross has remained
almost at its original location as one of two medieval way-markers on the path
to the parish church at St Columb Minor, and preserves a route of even
earlier significance between the collegiate church and its chapelry. Although
the course of the path has been slightly modified, this cross still stands at
the junction of the successor public footpath and the road east from Newquay,
demonstrating well the major functions of wayside crosses and the longevity of
many routes still in use, even after they have undergone extensive
urbanisation. The survival of successive earlier landscape elements which this
cross exemplifies also extends to the parish church with which the cross is
orientated, pre-dating the formation of the modern parish of Newquay.
Details
The monument includes a medieval wayside cross, known as the Doublestiles
Cross, and a protective margin around it, situated at a minor modern junction
on the main easterly road out of Newquay on the north Cornish coast, at a
former intersection of that road with a path running north east to the church
at St Columb Minor.
The Doublestiles Cross survives as an upright granite pillar rising 0.93m
high. The cross is of slab form, with the head merging directly into the
shaft. The slab measures 0.31m wide by 0.21 thick at the upper end, which has
a roughly rounded upper edge. At the upper end, the south west face bears a
low-relief Latin cross 0.31m across and 0.36m high. The north east face may
originally have borne a similar motif but only some ambiguous weathered lumps
remain. Below these features of the head, the shaft is ovoid in section 0.32m
wide and 0.2m thick, with slightly rounded faces, particularly so on the
north east face, and rounded corners. The cross is firmly set in the ground
with no visible evidence of a base, matching the observation by the historian
Langdon, in 1896, that the shaft was tightly packed beneath the surface with
stones rather than set in a base slab.
The Doublestiles Cross is situated on a wide grass verge on a housing estate
in the eastern suburbs of Newquay, at the junction of Duchy Road with the main
route linking Newquay with the east, the modern A392 road. The cross is only
one metre from its original location where, before the urban expansion of
Newquay, it was situated on the edge of a field called `Cross Close', by the
junction of the main route with a parish footpath leading to the church at St
Columb Minor, 0.75km to the north east. In the medieval period, the church at
St Columb Minor was a chapelry of a collegiate church at Crantock, south west
of Newquay. This path was of importance at that time as the direct link
between these two dependent medieval religious establishments. The line of the
path north east from the cross survives in a modified form as a public
footpath. A second wayside cross is also located 520m to the south west along
the former line of the same path. The modern parish of Newquay, within which
Doublestiles Cross and its church path are situated, was only created in 1918;
this medieval monument preserves the route relating to the former parish of St
Columb Minor and the earlier route to the church at Crantock.
The modern information plaque to the south east of the cross but within the
area of the protective margin is excluded from the scheduling but the ground
beneath is included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
