Stay or Stake Cross Plaque, George Street, Croydon, Surrey UK
Posted by: 
AngelPick
N 51° 22.459 W 000° 05.829
30U E 702029 N 5695451
The Stay or Stake Cross was one of four crosses marking the boundaries of Croydon in Elizabethan times.
Waymark Code: WMEN3X
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/17/2012
Views: 6
The building (the name eludes me despite extensive googling) is at 30-34 George Street, Croydon. Located next to the Electric House Reporting Centre.
Full text of plaque:
STAY OR STAKE CROSS
Near here once stood one of the Four Memorial Boundary Crosses of Old Croydon.
The other crosses were the HURN CROSS, the HAND CROSS and one of unknown name. They existed up to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I but disappeared in the late 1800s. The marked the area of the Old Town within which the inhabitants enjoyed manorial priveliges.
Old documents locate the crosses at “Burchalls House in an elm tree, The Pound, Little Almshouse Corner and Dodds Corner in an elm tree against the Catherine Wheel Corner”.
Plaques marking the sites of the other three crosses have been placed athe the junction of High Street and Coombe Road; at Pump Pail under the Fly-over; and at the lower end of Church Street.
This plaque was erected in 1977
By the Rotary Clubs of Croydon South and Croydon East
To commemorate the Silver Jubillee of
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Wikipedia kindly adds this info:
“For centuries the area lay within the Wallington hundred, an ancient Anglo-Saxon administrative division of the county of Surrey. In the later middle Ages – probably from the late 13th century onwards – those living in the town of Croydon, as defined by boundary markers known as the "four crosses", enjoyed a degree of self-government through a town court or portmote, and a form of free tenure of property. These privileges set the area of the town apart from its rural hinterland, where the more usual restrictive rules of manorial tenure applied. However, Croydon never held any kind of formal borough status.”
Type of Historic Marker: Plaque
Historical Marker Issuing Authority: Rotary Club
Age/Event Date: 06/01/1977
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Related Website: Not listed
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