BarnesMeadow&UniversityBikeride 9/11 The Eleanor Cross Memorial - A508 London Road, Northampton

Описание: The first queen of Edward 1st would perhaps have been completely forgotten had it not been for her husband’s dramatic memorials to her that were erected following her death in 1290.

These were the beautiful ‘Eleanor Crosses’ …the most famous one giving Charing Cross in London its name.

Eleanor of Castile was only ten when she left her mother country Spain and arrived in England in 1254 to marry Edward (also known as Longshanks).

As she was so very young at the time of their marriage, Edward went off for a few years, indulging in his favourite pastimes of war, tournaments and more war. He must have stopped fighting occasionally as they went on to have sixteen children together! It appears to have been a happy marriage in that they were rarely apart, Eleanor often travelling with Edward.

Edward’s life was full of warfare and after a successful campaign in Wales, he then turned his attention to Scotland. He wrote to Eleanor asking her to join him in the north, but she was taken ill on the journey and died in a little village called Harby in Nottinghamshire.

Edward was devastated and rushed back south to make arrangements for her funeral. Her body had to be taken back to Westminster in stages, and Edward had a beautiful memorial cross erected in each of the stopping places. In all there were twelve of these: Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Albans, Waltham, Cheapside, and the best known of all, Charing, then a little village near Westminster and nowadays named after the cross, Charing Cross.


Today only those at Geddington, Hardingstone near Northampton and Waltham Cross still remain.