Cornish Crosses  

By Andrew Langdon

 For the Federation of  Old Cornwall Societies

News

Tremethick Cross, Madron

Before accident  

and after 

At approximately 06.30hrs on Friday 22^nd February 2008 a refrigerated meat lorry careered off the road near Tremethick Cross on the A3071 road from Penzance to St Just.    The lorry managed to drive up an eight foot high bank, demolishing a cast iron finger post (signed Tregavarah ½ mile) and hitting a tall latin medieval cross; head-on, before ending up in a field beyond.  Luckily, the driver was not seriously hurt.

The medieval cross, locally known as Tremethick Cross (although actually situated ¼ mile south-east of Tremethick Cross crossroads) was broken into three pieces.  The cross-shaft was broken off at the top of the base-stone and also a few a few inches below the horizontal arms of the cross.  

On Sunday 23^rd February the cross-head and broken shaft were recovered from the cross-site, and were stored until arrangements could be made for their restoration. 

In May: Andrew spent two days monitoring contractors trying to pull the remainder of the cross shaft out of its base-stone, 

The restoration of the cross was carried out by Adrian Thomas and David Cutting, contractors and stonemasons from St Just in a project organised by the Historic Environment Service at Cornwall County Council.

First the mortar had to be chipped away from around the joint and the shaft loosened. Once this was achieved scaffold was placed over the ancient stone and a block and tackle used to lift the stone out.

The three parts of the cross were then cleaned, drilled and pinned with stainless steel pins at their workshop at Nanquidno.  

On October 16th, the cross was finally restored to its former site along with the repaired finger post.