Cross

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Formally known as the High Cross, but colloquially as just the Cross, the Cross can be found at the intersection of the four main streets (Northgate Street, Bridge Street, Eastgate Street and Watergate Street) that formed the original roads within the Roman fortress of Deva Victrix.

The Cross was first mentioned city records in 1377. It has been the site of public proclamations since medieval times. The earliest known official mention of Chester's Town Crier at the Cross was a famous proclamation by a 15th century Crier. In the 17th century, the Town Crier was permitted to have a stall at the Cross and take the profits.

During the Civil War, the Cross had served as a rallying point for the Royalist citzens, but after their eventual surrender to Parliamentary forces at the end of the siege in 1646, it was feared they would destroy it, an iconoclastic ordinance of 1643 having called for the "utter demolishing of all monuments of superstition and idolatry". After their surrender, the citizens had received reassurances that "no church within the city, evidences or writings belonging to the same shall be defaced" and assumed this also applied to the Cross. They were wrong, and it was demolished.

The ornate top section, with its carved figures of saints, apostles and the Virgin Mary, vanished without trace. The base of the Cross ended up, around 1817, at Plas Newydd in Llangollen, North Wales, where it remains to this day. The remainder was hidden under the steps of nearby St. Peter's Church, and stayed there forgotten until it was rediscovered in 1820, during the course of repairs. A churchwarden placed the pieces in his garden in Handbridge, until they were acquired by the 1st Duke of Westminister some 60 years later, who had them placed in the newly-opened Grosvenor Museum.

The city council re-erected the Cross in the Roman Garden in 1949, but, with the coming of pedestrianisation, it was restored to its ancient original site at the intersection of the city's main streets in 1975, after an absence of some 329 years.

Today, it is a focal point for Christian preachers, hawkers, and goths and chavs lounging on the base and drinking. The current Town Crier can be heard proclaiming at the Cross at noon, every Tuesday to Saturday, from May to August.

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