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Back row: Cllr Spencer, Cllr K French, Cllr Skoulding, Cllr J French, Cllr Taylor, Cllr Lawler, Cllr Count
Front row: Sarah Lemmon, Town Clerk, Cllr Woollard, Cllr Christy, Cllr Purser
Cllr Field and Cllr Orbell not in photo
March Stone Cross
The March Stone Cross dates from between 1480 and 1500 and it is thought to occupy the site of the township’s medieval market, halfway between Merche and Mercheford.
The Cross stands on higher ground halfway between these places. It was probably erected by an Order of Friars on the old market site as a place of preaching. The Preaching Cross at March was adorned by a religious figure, hence the reason it was considered offensive and the shaft, like so many others, taken down. Priests and curates would not allow a preaching cross to be erected anywhere near their churches.
The Devil, the church and the cross
The Stone Cross in March – or the base of it that remains – sits at the corner of The Avenue and Causeway Close (TL415957).
It is not far from St. Wendreda’s church, however, legend says that the townsfolk wanted to build another church nearer the market place. But, every night the Devil came and tore down what had been built the day before. The cross was erected to try and drive the Devil away – it succeeded, but the church was still never built.1
Other legends about the Stone Cross say that children were told if they walked twelve times around the topmost step of the cross base, they would hear the Devil ‘sharpening his knives’.2
Sources:
1. Enid Porter: ‘Cambridgeshire Customs & Folklore’, (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), p.183-4.
2. Miss L. Morton of March: letter in the ‘East Anglian Magazine’, Vol.12, No.5, March 1953.