Blythfield
Cross
The Reverend Coussmaker refers in his diary
to the site of this ancient cross and
speculates about its role. Writing in 1902
he records that:
‘down by the Blythe, halfway between
Hamstall and the junction of the Blythe with
the Trent, there stands one cottage and the
ruins of three more. This spot is called
Blythfield Cross’.
He notes that in the time of Stebbing Shaw
the base of the cross still stood, close to
the river at the bend to the north of these
cottages and close to the footpath that runs
from Gallow (or Olive) Green to Nethertown.
He could find no record or tradition why
this cross was erected.
However, he records that Henry Gould, a
farmer from Pipe Ridware, who for many years
farmed the land where this cross stood,
remembered the old foundations and that it
used to be called the Butter Cross because
an old market used to be held there. The
road to King’s Bromley ford across the Trent
used to run by this cross. Mr. Gould could
not remember the market being held in his
lifetime. The Reverend Coussmaker recalls
there used to be a market at King’s Bromley
and speculates that the market at Blythfield
Cross might be held only when floods
prevented people from crossing to King’s
Bromley. He records that another road, then
overgrown, used to run down the stream from
Gallows Green to this Butter Cross.
A different explanation was suggested by 70
year old George Birch, the sole resident of
Blythfield Cross. He believed that this old
cross, and those at Hoar Cross and elsewhere
in the neighbourhood, were where services
used to be held in times of disease
epidemic.
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