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Forfar, Old Market Cross

Market Cross (17th Century)

Site Name Forfar, Old Market Cross

Classification Market Cross (17th Century)

Canmore ID 33759

Site Number NO45SE 15

NGR NO 45624 50632

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/33759

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Angus
  • Parish Forfar
  • Former Region Tayside
  • Former District Angus
  • Former County Angus

Archaeology Notes

NO45SE 15 45624 50632.

(NO 4563 5063) Site of Cross (NR)

OS 25" map, Forfarshire and Angus, (1861)

The site of the Old Market Cross erected in 1684, and out of the stones of which the turret on the Castle Hill was built some 60 years ago. The site is marked by a cross cut in a stone of the street paving.

Name Book 1861; Information from Mr Roberts, Town Clerk.

There is no detailed account of a Market Cross older than 1623. In 1683 the old Cross of Forfar was demolished, and in 1684 Ochterlony wrote that the town was then 'building a very stately cross'. The base was removed to Castle Hill when the Town Hall was built. The shaft has been lost, but the finial - a rough representation of a tower or castellated building - is preserved in the Burgh Buildings.

The earliest mention of a proclamation being made from Forfar Cross is in 1491. It is mentioned at various times throughout the 16th century.

A Reid 1902.

Activities

Publication Account (2000)

Built in 1684, as a replacement of a medieval cross, it was transferred to its present site on Castle Hill in 1799, because it was causing traffic congestion on the High Street. The market cross of the town, along with the tolbooth, later called the townhouse, was the heart of the town, where all important secular business was transacted. All that now remains of the market cross is the column on which the cross was surmounted. The carved finial that surmounted the cross was in the form of a castellated tower. It was later found built into a garden wall, then placed at the base of the column, where it was damaged and removed and is no longer traceable. In 1827, the cross was the setting for the last public hanging, that of Margaret Wishart. A short time later, it was surrounded with a stone wall. This twenty-foot high ashlar column now has an iron stair affixed on six of its sides, having been adapted at one point for use as an outlook tower. Although this perhaps spoils the appearance of the structure itself, the stair affords ready access to the top of the column, from which a panoramic view of the setting of Forfar and its loch, now much reduced, gives an insight into the topography and physical development of the town.

Information from ‘Historic Forfar: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (2000).

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