Crosthwaite's Consecration Crosses

One of the unusual features of St Kentigern’s Church at Crosthwaite in Keswick is the extant twelve consecration crosses carved into the outer walls, and nine which survived the Victorian ‘improvements’ on the inside. They are circular carvings with stylised spokes which form Maltese crosses. These are the points upon which a bishop in Tudor times is thought to have blessed the new building, anointing it with oil and reciting prayers. That twelve locations were earmarked for this ceremony seems rather curious, yet it was clearly important to those sixteenth-century folk.

To 'consecrate' means to dedicate to God, to His sacred use, and for His peculiar glory. We Christians may not have been anointed, nor even baptised, and few of us bear special marks about our bodies, but for His use and glory do we now live and die.