Homer's Lane Wayside Cross

There's a minor road interconnecting Walwick to Warden skirting the side of Chesters. It snakes through the idyllic Northumbrian countryside, green and verdant in the spring and ripe with the call of the chiffchaff in early April.

Wandering the lanes, there's always plenty to see and in familiar sights and sounds we often return to the same spots, but it's rare to find a whole new landmark that you've never noticed or happened upon before like this - Homer's Lane Wayside Cross.

In a county spilling at the seams with Christianity and saints, there are crosses on every corner, but this is a pilgrim's post I'd seen before. It's clearly cared for, neatly mown and exposed for passers-by with a neat seat to stop and soak in the atmosphere.

On first glance, it was difficult to say what it was, but surely a way marker of some sort. I've learnt over the last few months of cross sockets and bases dotted over the northeast from St Cuthberts, Corsenside to the Manside Cross in the depths of Harwood Forest, so I thought it might be something similar.

Raised on a little mossy platform, the stump of something or other was sitting with a history to behold. I was thinking Roman ruins maybe but this is a Medieval wayside cross, it's top lost through time.

Such wayside markers were once common in this county between 9th and 15th centuries. Remember the Outer Golden Pot up on the Otterburn Ranges? They would have been interspersed along religious routes of difficult or unmarked terrain to re-instil the values of Christianity or to mark old coffin routes.

This would have been situated on the old Stanegate Road, a Roman and religious route between Corbridge and Carlisle which would have crossed a ford.

I was amazed to find out there are only 350-400 of these wayside markers remaining in the whole country. This one shows the carving of a V, possibly the remains of an old cross symbol and is a hefty rectangular socket stone with a broken stone cross shaft housed in it. I wonder what happened to the top?

It sits just up from the River North Tyne on its west bank.

We noticed a little hole on top of the cross shaft which people had left pennies in, maybe as a mark of remembrance or a form of respect. People often left coins in ancient times to see someone into the next life.

It was a nice place to while away a sunny afternoon with the sound of the brook as a backdrop and the strong and incessant hoo-eeeet of the chiffchaff.

Spring's back!