Robin Hood Picking Rods /Mercian Crosses
Robin Hood Picking Rods (sometimes referred to as the Druid Stones) are definitely a curiosity and I do not entirely understand why they are associated with the Bow Stones at the end of the Gritstone Trail.
The Bow Stones are roughly the same height, short, are slabs, are heavily carved, show limited weathering and do show evidence of being produced with reasonable skill.
On the other hand, the Picking Rods are about a foot different in height, about four feet in height, pillars, with no visible evidence of carvings, are fairly heavily weathered, and are relatively crude. The base, for example, does not seem to be dressed stone and the sockets seem to have been made without any attempt at accuracy.
My impression, from examining them, is that the Bow Stones were carved in imitation of the Picking Rods, but as that is not the accepted interpretation, I assume there is further information I am missing. Can anyone tell me more about what is known/guessed about the Picking Rods?
Posted by: Jonathan Day 4th August 2006
Ann Hearle lent me an excellent book which suggestes answers to some of these questions called Crosses of the Peak District by Neville.T.Sharpe (ISBN 1 84306 019 1) from which the following précis is taken:
Robin Hoods Picking Rods (SK00 6909) (also once known as the Maiden Stones)
These ancient stones stand at the junction of the township boundaries of Ludworth, Mellor and Thornsett, close to the boundary of Chisworth and on the route of an old trackway, which shows occasional traces of metalling and may therefore one have been an important route from Glossop to Ludworth.
Folk tales abound about their origins but the accepted view seems to be that they are the remains of the base of twin Mercian Pillar Crosses (There is an excellent illustration on page 93 of how they might have originally looked) Their present condition could be due to a combination of possible factors including: natural erosion and weathering; the destruction and desecration of such images ordered by Edward Sixth during the 1548 religious upheavals; similar treatment during the English Civil War under an Act of Parliament; and wilful removal and concealment by landowners of ancient rights of way during the periods of enclosure.
These Mercian crosses are generally to be found in Staffordshire, Cheshire and the High Peak of Derbyshire in an area felt to have been inhabited by a tribal group called the Pecsaetna from whom the Peak District is believed to take its name
The cross was adopted as an emblem of Christianity at the Council of Constantinople in 692, following which the early missionaries to Anglo Saxon England brought crosses as a symbol of their faith. Sharpe suggests that simple wooden crosses would have been erected along the wayside to draw crowds to listen to them. Stone crosses seem to have appeared from the 8th century onwards as Christianity became more established.
They might have been also set up as boundary markers or might already have been in position as Way markers and subsequently adopted as Parish boundary markers when the Saxons mapped out the Parishes in the years before the Norman Conquest. In either case the practice seems to have ended there as the Normans preferred to build Churches, although many Norman Churches have older carved stone remnants incorporated into their fabric suggesting that they and might have been built on the site of a former stone monument.
Posted by: Pam Bates 16th August 06
I shall see if I can obtain a copy of the book. I would like to know more about the interpretation and what they derive it from. I've included here some links to known Mercian crosses and as you can see, they are squared off and tapered, very unlike the Picking Rods which are nicely rounded and very even. (The first link shows two on the main page and dozens are linked off it.)
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cj.tolley/ctm/ctm-eliseg.htm
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=9988
http://www.ebc-indevelopment.co.uk/peak_dev/_images/_pictures/tl83.jpg
As one can assume the experts know a Mercian Pillar Cross when the see one, they have to have some additional information to be as sure as they are, unless they're starting from the assumption that it is a Mercian Cross and then deriving conclusions of damage/weathering to explain the discrepencies.
(Unless they're arguing that there are different classes of Mercian Cross, of which one is squared and another is rounded.) I find the archaeolgists conclusions interesting and fairly compelling, but there is a nagging feeling that the difference between the Picking Rods and the above three Crosses is significant enough to warrant an examination.
I hope, for example, that the owner of the field in which the Picking Rods sit, and maybe the one next to it, would permit a geophysical survey in that immediate area. If it is a cross of this kind, we're missing at least 4 or 5 feet of pillar and maybe the same again of cross at the top. A five foot stone wheel should stand out very nicely in even the most basic of surveys.
I hope, with the example images to compare the Picking Rods to, some others can be encouraged to put something in e-mail, even if it is only a "we've already looked there - here's the reference for the paper", or a "ok, tell Jonathan to stop being a pain, we'll go and look after we've finished here."
Posted by: Jonathan Day 17th August 06
I see that on the Mellor correspondence website you have some input re Robin Hood's Picking Rods. One of the links via the megalithic portal is to my picture ( I am 'astronomer') of a similar Mercian cross at Brailsford and can be linked to the Mercian capital at Repton.
I have been researching the Mercian Crosses of the Lyme and have given a couple of talks about them. They run from Robin Hood's Picking Rods down the Lyme to Leek and then swing east along the Trent valley to Nottingham, thus forming a sort of boundary along a political divide that may be English Mercia / Viking Mercia or even Welsh Britannica / Anglo-Saxon England.
I attach a map of the 'Mercian ' crosses and some pictures of them. There may also be an association with the crosses of the Lyme and the post-Norman Cistercian abbies on the Welsh marches bordering Cheshire that seem to have been given land on the western fringe of the Peak District. In 1407 this exactly similar boundary of the Lyme, connecting the headwaters of the rivers Mersey and the Trent was that proposed by Owyn Glyndwr in the tripartite debenture of 1407 as contested British (Welsh) territory going back to the 9th century.
Posted by: Kevin J Kilburn 27.08.06
Kevin has also kindly given us permission to reproduce two of his maps for reference:
Abbeys and Mercian Crosses (Reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of Ordnance Survey, © Crown copyright)
Early 10th Century Mercian Cheshire (Reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of Ordnance Survey, © Crown copyright)
The idea that the shafts have a connection with the Cistercian monastries was reinforced last weekend when I learned of a cross with identical achitecture to those in the Lyme at Beckermet in Cumbria. It's in the churchyard of St Briget, an ancient site adopted in the 12th C by the nearby Cistercian Calder Abbey.
This is by far the most remote 'Mercian' cross and seems to be the exception that proves the rule...they may have been shafts re-used by the Cistercians when defining their own territories.
Posted by: Kevin Kilburn 07.09.06
These Mercian crosses have bugged me ever since Doug Pickford, editor of Leek Post & Times, local folklorist and author, suggested I investigate them three or four years ago.
The received wisdom (Victoria History of Cheshire et al) is that they are 9-10 century but VHC does not take into account any of those outside of Cheshire, nor looks at their distribution. There are about 20 of them with a very similar architectural style which suggests either a religious or political power dictating their design. They were not cheap. I got a recent quote for a 5-foot plain shaft at £3000 rising to £10,000+ for an ornamented one...how that relates to 9thC prices is anyone's guess.
My observation is that most of them are clustered in the Lyme between Glossop and Leek...you dont cluster expensive shafts like these without having a lot of local 'clout'. They can be found wrapping round from the Lyme into the Trent valley at Brailsford and at Stapleford (8th C ?) near Nottingham. The Brailsford cross depicts a warrior that looks very like the 8thC Mercian king depicted on the Repton Stone...pic attached, suggesting an early date for them and possibly a political territorial boundary marker as the reason for their erection.
Eliseg's Pillar (9thC ?) at Llangollen is the same style but of monstrous proportions, 20 ft high...'blocking' the Dee valley as it enters Cheshire. There is one at Chebsey near Eccleshall, Staffordshire...again on the edge of Cheshire. The pattern is that they fringe Cheshire, but particularly marking a geographical boundary along the Lyme from head of Mersey to head of Trent. This was a contested part of English Mercia with the Welsh. Equally the shafts in the Lyme and Trent vally could be the divide between English Mercia and Viking Mercia. It suggests that they were eraected by the kings of English Mercia to mark boundaries between them and their enemies, the Welsh and the Vikings, particularly the Vikings.
BUT my other observation is that they are also clustered near Cistercian abbies or lands owned by the abbies, especially in the Lyme. After the Conquest, the Lyme was apparently parceled off to several Cistercian houses originating in central and western Cheshire .
The tightest cluster, six, all originally within two miles of Wincle Grange ( 3 now in West Park, Macclesfield, 1 at Cleulow, 1 at Swythamley and 1 originally at Heaton but now residing at Goostrey in the garden of writer Alan Garner) , is on Cistercian land at Wincle associated with Dieulacresse Abbey at Leek and Combermere near Nantwich.
Eliseg is within a mile of Valle Crucis abbey at Llangollen and now Beckermet may also fit this latter pattern, being close to Calder Abbey.
Whether or not these 'Mercian' shafts were already insitu marking a boundary of English Mercia is, I feel, open to debate but a floated idea is that they were re-used to Christianise the pagan moorlands, many are (or were) near prehistoric sites.
The problem is that they cant be both 9th C political Mercian crosses and post-Conquest religious crosses unless this proposed re-use is a valid argument.
Posted by: Kevin Kilburn 9th September 06
A further cross fragment has been located not too far away at Rainow, having possibly originated (no references) at nearby Jenkin Chapel.Our opinion is that it is the tip of a 'Mercian cross' but it bears unusual carvings.