The Stoke Minster information board is located next to the path leading to the entrance of The Minster Church of St. Peter-Ad-Vincula in Stoke. (
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The information board shows photographs, a map of the Two Saints Way route and gives the following information;
"(Two Saints Way logo) STOKE MINSTER
The first mission churches in this region started with the erection of a wooden cross where the first converts met to worship.
(Line drawing of Mercian cross shaft) This was followed by building a simple wooden church, which by the nineth century had been rebuilt in stone. The name given to this ancient place of meeting and worship was Stoke from the Old English word 'stoc meaning 'a religious or sacred place,' originally an island in a watery landscape to which Christians came from nearby settlements like Penkhull.
This Mercian cross shaft is probably the oldest known object in Stoke. It was unearthed in 1876 by a grave digger. The fine designs on the cross include a double row of interlace which later Staffordshire people have liked to see as a model for the Staffordshire knot.
(Photograph of Saxaon Font) The only other object to survive from the earliest stone church which was built in the Romanesque style is the Saxon font which is still used in the present church.
The church was largely rebuilt in the 13th century. To your left you can see two restored arches reconstructed on the original site using the stones from this church which had been recycled as building materials in the 19th century.
The present church was built from 1826 and consecrated in 1830. The church has the unusual dedication of St Peter ad Vincula (St Peter in chains) which falls on the 1st August an early Celtic harvest festival. It became a minster in 2005. This was highly appropriate because it was most probably the earliest place of Christian worship in the area and therefore a mother church in the region. It would almost certainly have been founded as an Anglo-Saxon Mynster, but the title was lost over the centuries.
There are ceramic memorials to the great potters of the region and Josiah Wedgwood is buried over near the arches in the church yard.
There is also a memorial to the legendary footballer Sir Stanley Matthews, whose funeral was held here in 2000.
The Two Saints Way
The Two Saints Way is a 90 mile recreated pilgrimage route between the cathedral cities of Chester and Lichfield.
Stoke Minster is located at the centre of the trail at the end of stage 8 and the start of stage 9 if you are travelling from north to south. We do not know how many pilgrims passed this way in the middle ages, but when the inaugural pilgrimage along the Two Saints Way arrived here on March 29th 2012, the custom of preaching at the Saxon Cross was revived.
For more information on the Two Saints Way please visit
www.twosaintsway.org.uk "
The Two Saints Way is a 90 mile recreated pilgrimage route between the cathedral cities of Chester and Lichfield. Stoke Minster is located at the centre of the trail at the end of stage 8 and the start of stage 9 if you are travelling from north to south.
The project to recreate the pilgrimage route was stared in 2008 by the founder David Pott. The inaugural pilgrimage arrived at Stoke Minster on 29th March 2012, when the preaching at the Saxon Cross was revived.
The Two Saints Way is named after St Chad and St Werburgh, the Saxon saints who brought Christianity from Northumbria to the ancient kingdom of Mercia in the seventh century. St Chad's shrine is at Lichfield and St Werburgh's shrine is at Chester. The route, from the start in Chester has the following highlights; Chester Cathedral, Christleton, Waverton, Shropshire Union Canal, Peckforton Castle, Bunbury, Nantwich, Wybunbury, Hough, Weston, Barthomley, Audley, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Gardens, Stone, Trent and Mersey Canal, Stafford, Cannock Chase Forest and Lichfield Cathedral. (
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