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Whiteleaf CrossChristianised Site
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Waylands Stock Campaign.Whiteleaf Cross. A hill carving is set in the Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire and there are many varied tales as to how it became so... continues... |
Posted by Fleas6th September 2007ce Edited 11th October 2007ce |
Whiteleaf and Brush Hill Local Nature Reserve Open Dayshttp://www.buckscc.gov.uk/countryside/whiteleaf/events... continues... |
Posted by RiotGibbon 13th September 2002ce |
Whiteleaf Hill restoration projecthttp://www.buckscc.gov.uk/news/200105/Whiteleaf_Hill... continues... |
Posted by RiotGibbon 31st August 2001ce |
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This fantastic site is right on the ancient Ridgeway path, along a section of its eastern end, and is part of the scarp slope of the Chilterns looking out over the Vale of Aylesbury and Didcot, Oxford etc. It (the Ridgeway) is full of power, an important route since at least Iron Age times. I love to stand up here looking out to the West and Northwest in the knowledge that the same path will lead past hundreds of other powerful ancient sites all the way to Avebury. This area is linked with other barrows, camps and sacred sites at for example Pulpit Hill and Ivinghoe Beacon. If you dig for a little background history this whole area comes alive, fitting in with the rest of prehistoric southern England like a jigsaw piece. I'm just wondering if some of the people getting pissed were me or my friends, mentioned by the previous contributor - nothing wrong with a little ritual libation! What a place to meditate or mark a solstice (we've NEVER lit campfires though). |
Posted by jezzer 29th November 2002ce |
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It's great when you find somewhere by accident. I was out with the Gibbonnettes, barrow hunting. I knew that there was a couple of barrows at the top of a hill outside Princes Risbrough, and it was just about the only place open (this was during F&M time) We parked up, and had a good scramble around the hill and in the woods ... noticing what appeared to be a bit of quarrying on the hill, but not paying too much attention to it .. We skirted around the bottom of the hill, and looped back up. There's a lovely walk in the woods, and it opens out to a *stunning* view towards Oxford. With a barrow at the top of the hill. Perhaps eager to avoid the barrow for as long as humanely possible, the Gibbonnettes roved down the front of the hill towards a big wooden log fence, saying "hey, what's this?" Still preoccupied with the rather sorry state of the barrow on top, I didn't pay a lot of attention to them (shame upon me), but they persisted, so I had a look ... the whole side of the hill was cut away into huge cross. This thing is *massive*. Huge. Enormous ... I just couldn't comprehend it ... I've read books, driven past Princes Risbrough more than once, know people who've walked the Chilterns, but never, ever heard of this, or anything about it. Fantastic place, go and have a look RG |
Posted by RiotGibbon 24th August 2001ce |
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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 wysefool5th February 2007ce |
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J&C Bord say that Whiteleaf Cross has not been dated, but that a local boundary mark called 'Wayland's Stock' was mentioned in a charter of 903AD, and perhaps they're one and the same. 'Stock' could be interpreted as alluding to something stick-like (which rather ties in with the hypothesis that the cross is actually a christianised phallic symbol). But perhaps that's just finding what you want to / expect to find. (info in their 'Atlas of Magical Britain', but no more details about what charter it was from) |
Posted by Rhiannon31st October 2003ce Edited 31st October 2003ce |
| One of the most intriguing stories about the cross (hinted at but not explained on the Bucks CC website) is that the present day cross shape was originally a large phallic shape. The Bucks CC site mentions that it has almost certainly been altered since the 18th C; I can imagine what both the Church and pious villagers in the Vale below had to say about a hundred foot dick in full view every day. I only wish there was evidence for the original shape, so they could spend their 75,000 quid restoring it to that! |
Posted by jezzer 29th November 2002ce |
| There's supposed to be a "Fairy Ring" up here ... though judging by the state of the place, any fairies will have been long scared by people sat around campfires getting pissed ... |
Posted by RiotGibbon 31st August 2001ce |
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Whiteleaf Cross gets a mention in the Otway and Barrett song "Louise on a horse". Not suprising as they come from Aylesbury. |
Posted by north bucks 1st December 2009ce |
I just mentioned before the Base on which the Cross is erected, and that its form came near to that of a Triangle. This is an essential part of the monument, and, I think, ought to be called the Altar of the Cross. The common people indeed know no other name for it than The Globe, nor do I doubt their veracity in adhering to what they have been taught to call it; though, I fear, not by the first authors of the monument.From Francis Wise's 1742 'Further observations upon the White Horse and other antiquities in Berkshire. With an account of Whiteleaf-Cross in Buckinghamshire.' The Globe. I suppose that's like the Orb topped with a cross (the type that goes with a Sceptre). Though Fleas (see above) might take its spherical properties as support for his own argument. |
Posted by Rhiannon 27th April 2009ce Edited 27th April 2009ce |
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British Council CollectionPaul Nash painted the site more than once. This link is to a watercolour held by the Tate. There's also an oil painting on this link which could be the one owned by the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. |
Posted by Rhiannon 28th April 2009ce |
Bucks County Council Whiteleaf Cross info siteall about the cross and the hill |
Posted by RiotGibbon 4th January 2002ce Edited 27th April 2009ce |
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