The Cross in the Tree

In 1982, an ash tree in Hill House Lane was felled. As it was being cut up, it split open revealing a clearly defined cross which had been buried deep inside the tree. The cross is 5½" tall & 3" across. The two pieces of wood are on display in the Church porch. The finding of the cross raised a number of questions: how did it come to be there, what sort of a cross was it originally, when was it put there & why? Earlier guesses that a metal cross had been at some time hung there proved wrong when Fr Loughlin (parish priest at the time) took the wood to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew & to the Archaeological Research Centre, Greenwich. The results of the micro-techniques used on the wood established that no metal or other cross had been attached to the wood. It was established, by counting the growth rings, that the cross had been carved into the tree over a period of up to 20 years. The age of the tree was established; the tree was planted in 1801. In 1838, some skilled person carved a distinctive cross in it & continued to do so over a period of 20 years. After that, the tree grew on, healing the wound in its bark & covering the cross completely. What had this to do with Fr Arrowsmith? The ash tree stood in a field on the left of the junction of Jack Green and Hill House Lane. There was a cottage there once & on his flight from the Blue Anchor, up Gregson Lane and Hill House Lane, Fr Arrowsmith left his chalice, vestment & altar stones (see elsewhere for these - in the St Edmund Arrowsmith & history pages) with the Catholic woman living there. She hid them in the wall of the cottage so well that they were not discovered until the cottage blew down in a storm in 1774 revealing the vestments. Did someone mark this hallowed spot by carving the cross on the tree? Even the ruins of cottage have now disappeared.

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