Eleanor Cross - High Street, St Albans, UK
N 51° 45.071 W 000° 20.439
30U E 683560 N 5736711
This plaque is attached to the south face of the Clock Tower in St Alban's Market Place located on the north side of the High Street. The plaque indicates that "near this site stood the Eleanor Cross" - one of twelve crosses.
Waymark Code: WMRTHQ
Location: Eastern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/03/2016
Views: 1
The wording on the plaque reads:
Near this site stood
The Eleanor Cross
where the body of
Queen Eleanor
rested one night on its
progress from
Harby to Westminster
13 December 1290
Wikipedia has an article about the Eleanor Crosses and has a section about the St Albans cross that advises:
A cross was erected in the Market Place at a cost of £100. It stood for many years in front of the fifteenth century Clock Tower in the High Street (opposite the Waxhouse Gateway entrance to the Abbey), and was demolished in the early eighteenth century due to neglect, and replaced by the town pump. A fountain was erected in its stead in 1874, which was subsequently relocated to Victoria Place.
Wikipedia also has an article about Queen Eleanor of Castile that tells us:
Eleanor of Castile (1241 – 28 November 1290) was the first queen consort of Edward I of England, whom she married as part of a political deal to affirm English sovereignty over Gascony.
The marriage was known to be particularly close, and Eleanor travelled extensively with her husband. She was with him on the Eighth Crusade, when he was wounded at Acre, but the popular story of her saving his life by sucking out the poison has long been discredited. When she died, near Lincoln, her husband famously ordered a stone cross to be erected at each stopping-place on the journey to London, ending at Charing Cross.
Eleanor was better-educated than most medieval queens, and exerted a strong cultural influence on the nation. She was a keen patron of literature, and encouraged the use of tapestries, carpets and tableware in the Spanish style, as well as innovative garden designs. She was also a successful businesswoman, endowed with her own fortune as Countess of Ponthieu.