To some extent, the category of wayside crosses tends to gather in those crosses that are not churchyard, village, market or boundary crosses. Crosses outside these categories tend to be grouped as ‘wayside crosses’ by default.
Nationally, there is a group of crosses (or stones) whose function is to act as way-markers, defining paths and tracks through difficult terrain such as moorland, heath or marsh. Some of the better known examples of these are found on Dartmoor where they exist in a wide range of types. Some early pre-Christian stones (monoliths) have been ‘Christianised’ by the inscription of a cross.
As they mark linear trackways, these wayside/way-marker crosses usually tend to occur in groups.
One might expect Lincolnshire, with its areas of heathland, fen and marsh, to have had several sets of wayside crosses to mark safe paths over dangerous terrain . . . but if such ever existed, they have not survived. The few wayside crosses included in this gazetteer are very much the miscellanea that do not fit into the better defined categories.
Post Script: – For amusement only – there is an endearing typo in the Lincolnshire HER for Tothby socket stone (the so-called Plague Stone) whose text begins: A large wayward cross base, known locally as a ‘plague stone’, is located here.
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