| Parish/District | Grantham/South Kesteven |
| Location | Thought to have been on open ground – later a market place – to the west of St Wulfram’s church |
| Category | Lost cross |
| National Grid Ref | c. SK 91394 36106 |
| Designation | N/A |
| Stone type | N/A |
| Refs | Start, D., & Stocker, D., (eds), 2011, The Making of Grantham …. pp. 151-181; Davies, D. S. 1912/1916, L N & Q vols 12 and 14 pp.141 & pp.55-64 |
| Visits | – |
Grantham’s Apple Cross is a lost cross – it once stood on the market place to the west of St Wulfram’s church and recent research has attempted to reconstruct its form and to chart its extraordinary history.
Davies notes that the Apple Cross stood ‘at the head of Swinegate … the High Cross of Grantham’ – and Stocker has suggested that it dates, on stylistic grounds, to c.1500-1530. However, given that it is a lost cross . . . what is this dating based on?
Stocker observes that the Apple Cross was still standing in November 1645 but a year or so later it had been demolished whilst the town was under occupation by the Parliamentary Army. He has conjectured that the elaborately carved stones of the demolished Apple Cross were taken by a man called Edward Rawlinson and used by him to create a room called the Oratory at his home at 63 High Street. By 1790, this ornate chamber was considered a curiosity and was illustrated in detail by the antiquarian John Carter. The room was described as a ‘chapel’.
From Carter’s drawings, Stocker could see that the architectural elements could be reordered to form the panels of a highly decorated standing cross, and has put forward a convincing argument (with paper reconstructions) that the Oratory, although now lost to modern analysis, was built from the components of a huge 16th century high cross – The Apple Cross.
((c) British Library BL Add 29929)
