Eleanor cross

The Eleanor crosses were stone monuments in the shape of a cross that Edward I of England erected in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile at the twelve places where her funeral procession stopped overnight on its route from Harby, Lincolnshire, to Westminster Abbey in London in 1290.

Those twelve places were:

• Lincoln
• Grantham
• Stamford
• Geddington
• Northampton
• Stony Stratford
• Woburn
• Dunstable
• St Albans
• Waltham (now Waltham Cross)
• Westcheap
• Charing (now Charing Cross)

The only three crosses still standing are the ones at Waltham Cross, Northampton, and Geddington.

The cross at Charing Cross was destroyed in 1647 and a statue of Charles I was erected on the site in 1675. The replica cross is a copy of the original and was erected at a later date but not in the same location as the original.