Boyle Cross Explained

The Boyle Cross is a Grade II listed structure located in the town centre of Frome in Somerset, England.[1] Directly across the road from the George Hotel, it functions as a market cross for the town. It was erected in 1871 and was designed by the Victorian artist Eleanor Vere Boyle, the wife of Richard Boyle, a chaplain to Queen Victoria who was by then rector of the nearby village of Marston Bigot. He was a descendant of the Anglo-Irish Earls of Cork, long-standing landowners in the area. It was sculpted of Devon marble and weighs approximately a ton. The land for the cross was donated by the Ninth Earl of Cork.[2] Catherine Hill begins a little to the west of the Boyle Cross.

Originally designed as a fountain supplied by a channel running down from a well at the Church of St John the Baptist, this function has been restored in recent years.

Bibliography

51.2311°N -2.3215°W

Notes and References

  1. Lassman p.186
  2. https://www.discoverfrome.co.uk/attraction/market-place/