It’s been called a ‘preaching cross’, though it does not have a large open area around it to suggest that. A wayside cross, at what was once an intersection on two linear cross-country routes, feels more appropriate when you sit and look at it.
© 2022 Paul Mobbs; released under the Creative Commons license.
Created: 19th April 2021;
Updated: 2nd March 2023.
Length: ~200 words.
Location: Kiddington, Oxfordshire
Type: ‘Standing Stones, Circles, & Megaliths’.
Condition: 15th Century wayside cross, heavily weathered, missing bar.
Access: By the side of the minor road to Kiddington village from the main A44.
OS Grid Ref.: SP410223.
Further information: Historic England.
With the coming of the Woodstock & Rollright turnpike around 1800, what is now the A44, this route was sidelined. The stone is not grand; its character is that of a monument that’s an unlikely survivor from an earlier time.
This is a lovely spot to work into a long day-walk around the Glyme and/or Evenlode valley. It marks the transition between the meandering ridge routes along the Glyme valley, and the flat, straight trackways of Ditchley Park. Certainly, if you have just climbed from the river valley below, the stone step is a welcome place for a rest.