Hawsker Cross

For the fire...spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east, and did not cease, until, destroying the neighbouring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red and savage tongue in the western ocean. In these assaults...all the columns were levelled with the ground by the frequent strokes of the battering-ram, all the husbandmen routed, together with their bishops, priests and people, whilst the sword gleamed, and the flames crackled around them on every side. Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press; and with no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds; with reverence be it spoken for their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were many found who were carried, at that time, into the high heaven by the holy angels... Some, therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation...Others, committing the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests and to the rocks of the seas (albeit with trembling hearts), remained still in their country.

Gildas The Wise

Figures Of The Earth

Unseen, Briga stole back the great stone from the ruins of the clifftops monastery. Then, as was foretold, she moved it to the lofts and placed it within the sacred grounds. Knowing the Saxon interlopers would be suspicious, she affixed to the stone the mark of their god, paying heed to craft within the carvings the knowledge of her people.

Throughout her life Briga had been taught the art of stone shaping and the secrets of incantation, in adolescence her body had been ritually marked with needlepoint and dye, in preparation for the undertaking.

Now, these arcane symbols that decorated Briga's skin could at last be cut into the rock. An act that would allow the ancient invocations the strange glyphs contained to soak into the fabric of the land and once again open the age-old pathways.

W.G. Collingwood.
Yorkshire Archaeological Journal Vol. 21 1911.
Yorkshire Archaeological Society.

The Cross (Source - Historic England)

Hawsker Cross wayside cross survives well in spite of losing its head. It is a fine example of the late Anglo-Scandinavian type of sculpture. It gives us insight into the beliefs of the medieval period and may mark a boundary of the Whitby Abbey lands on the south side.

The cross stands in a vegetable garden 100m east of Hawsker Hall Farm. The cross consists of a stone base split into two halves at the socket hole and a shaft broken off below the head. The base is of fine yellow sandstone, measuring 1.07m on the north side and 0.86m on the west side. The base stone is 0.31m high. The socket is 0.51m by 0.41m and the shaft is cemented into it. The shaft stands 1.84m high and is 0.36m by 0.22m at the base, tapering to 0.29m by 0.18m at the top. The cross shaft is decorated with fine interlace carving on the north east and south sides, although the patterns are badly eroded. The west side bears a vine scroll carving. On the east and west sides are faint traces of figure carving as well. At the corners a simple roll moulding defines the carved panels. The style is of the Anglo-Scandinavian period and dates from the tenth century.

Wayside crosses are one of several types of Christian cross erected during the medieval period, mostly from the 9th to 15th centuries AD. In addition to serving the function of reiterating and reinforcing the Christian faith amongst those who passed the cross and of reassuring the traveller, wayside crosses often fulfilled a role as waymarkers, especially in difficult and otherwise unmarked terrain. The crosses might be on regularly used routes linking ordinary settlements or on routes having a more specifically religious function, including those providing access to religious sites for parishioners and funeral processions, or marking long-distance routes frequented on pilgrimages. Over 350 wayside crosses are known nationally, concentrated in south west England throughout Cornwall and on Dartmoor where they form the commonest type of stone cross. A small group also occurs on the North York Moors. Relatively few examples have been recorded elsewhere and these are generally confined to remote moorland locations. Outside Cornwall almost all wayside crosses take the form of a `Latin' cross, in which the cross-head itself is shaped within the projecting arms of an unenclosed cross. In Cornwall wayside crosses vary considerably in form and decoration. The commonest type includes a round, or `wheel', head on the faces of which various forms of cross or related designs were carved in relief or incised, the spaces between the cross arms possibly pierced. The design was sometimes supplemented with a relief figure of Christ and the shaft might bear decorative panels and motifs. Less common forms in Cornwall include the `Latin' cross and, much rarer, the simple slab with a low relief cross on both faces. Rare examples of wheel-head and slab-form crosses also occur within the North York Moors group. Most wayside crosses have either a simple socketed base or show no evidence for a separate base at all. Wayside crosses contribute significantly to our understanding of medieval religious customs and sculptural traditions and to our knowledge of medieval routeways and settlement patterns. All wayside crosses which survive as earth- fast monuments, except those which are extremely damaged and removed from their original locations, are considered worthy of protection.

With special thanks to Gavin Parry - https://teessidepsychogeography.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/hawsker/