Whiteleaf Cross Christianised Site View all content for Whiteleaf Cross

from 'Chiltern Country' by H J Massingham (1944) '...50 feet high by 25 long, from a pyramidal base (Bledlow Cross has none) 340 feet wide. It can be seen from Shotover and many a point in the vale, just as the White Horse can from Faringdon Folly and many a point in the vale. The Sinodun Hills are visible from Whiteleaf and the blue veil of the Berkshire Downs as though let down from heaven. The Cross saw and was meant to be seen with the range of the falcon. As I argued in a book written some years ago, it has stood or rather leaned against the bluff above the Way from the time when tin ingots on men's shoulders, flint from the factories at Grime's Graves, wool-tods on pack horses, sheep, cattle and ponies, chapmen and pedlars, pilgrims and soldiery passed along the Ridge Way on the summit, first as a solar or phallic sign and from the eighteenth century onwards as a cross.'

Posted by wysefool 5th February 2007ce

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