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            The Postcard

A postally unused postcard bearing no publisher's name that was published in the mid-1960's. The card, which has a divided back, was printed in Great Britain.

The Butter Cross

Upright crosses were a feature in the early Anglo Saxon Christian community. Stone sculpture in the form of monastical buildings and crosses had a big impact on ordinary people, demanding attention with a permanence that signalled both the identity and the status of a place. It marks out a place as somewhere special or different. 

Beside the Cross, an alley way leads past the site of William the Conqueror's house, built not long after the invasion, and St. Lawrence’s church on the opposite side of the alley way, on the site of his chapel.

The Butter Cross of Winchester is a Holy Cross. It is thought to have been a gift of Cardinal Beaufort who was Bishop of Winchester from 1404 – 1447. It may well have replaced a much earlier cross associated with the monastic buildings and the Old Minster.

Early crosses were generally carved with quite complex iconography and were richly painted. Certainly the 15th. century Butter Cross is replete with figures. There are twelve of them, including the Blessed Virgin and a plethora of saints: Bartholomew, Peter, Swithun, John, Lawrence, Maurice and Thomas. 

Later figures added are those of William of Wykeham, Lawrence de Anne, King Alfred and one representing either St. John the Evangelist or St. Amphibalus.

The cross with all its pinnacles, rests upon five octagonal steps, and being situated in the High Street, the steps lent themselves to having the wares of traders arranged upon them. Butter, cheese, eggs, milk all were probably sold from the steps of the cross to the people of Winchester, hence the name Butter Cross.

Somehow the Butter Cross survived the trials and tribulations of political machinations. King Henry VIII’s Dissolution and Cromwell’s Civil War both blew through Winchester, leaving a trail of tumult and destruction behind them, but somehow the Butter Cross survived the worst of it. 

In 1770, its sale to a squire, Thomas Dummer, who thought it might look fine on his estate, was met with an angry response from local people, who gathered at the cross and drove away the men who had come to collect it.

The Victorians could not leave it alone and the architect, Gilbert Scott, was tasked with its restoration in 1865.

Taken on: May 29, 2023

Tags:

postcard

old

nostalgia

nostalgic

Winchester

Butter

Cross

printed

Great

Britain

Anglo

Saxon

William

Conqueror

Cardinal

Beaufort

Bishop

1404

1447

1770

Thomas

Dummer

Gilbert

Scott

1865

32WBC43 « less

Sets appears in: • UK

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