Pilgrim's Stone

Whitaker (1801) says that the existence of the Pilgrims' Cross, as mentioned in 1225, indicated the route of pilgrims travelling from the north of England to Walsingham and Canterbury. Land in Holcombe Forest was left in that year to Bretton Priory, including "three acres of meadow near Pilgrims' Cross Shaw ... a resting place of the pilgrims". He also mentions the Plantaganets and Lacys, who travelled via the monument's location to Lancaster, from their castles in Clitheroe and Pontefract. "What trains of sumpter horses must upon these occasions have been seen traversing these boggy wastes, impassable at that time for carriages. This was the line the Lacys were condemned to pursue". A…

Known locally as the Pilgrims' Cross, the current monument dates from 1902, marking the site of an ancient cross that is recorded as standing in 1176, and possibly earlier. It is located on Holcombe Moor above Bury, It is "on the western side of the Irwell valley [where the land] rises to a height of over 1200 ft above the sea. Anciently [the moor] formed part of the forest or chase of Tottington, belonging to the Earl of Lancaster and afterwards to the Lacies, earls of Lincoln". Monuments on high moorland such as Pilgrims' Cross served as guide posts for travellers, to tell them how far they had travelled and to aid orientation in bad weather.