Waresley's ancient church seems to have been originally dedicated to St Andrew, but later came under the patronage of St James the Great. According to the inscription in highly idiosyncratic Latin on a broken stone at the base of this cross, it was destroyed by a "horrible tempest" in mid-September 1724 and replaced in 1728. The new church was a small building designed by Andrews Jelfe "in humble imitation of the chapel at Pembroke College" in Cambridge (Christopher Wren's first building, which had been consecrated in 1665). This in its turn was demolished in 1856 when William Butterfield had built the present church in the centre of the village in
TL2454, on a much grander scale and more conveniently located, the old churchyard continuing in use for burials.
"E Idus Sept. A.D. MDCCXXIV
Tempģm D. Jacobi Waresliensis
Horribili Tempestatis us Euer Sum:
Uotiuis piorum Hominum Donis
Procurante Ejusdem Uicario Xtophoro Selbyam,
Ędinio Tho. Paine Iństauratum
Revdo admodum in [Chris]to Patre Ricardo
Lincoln Episcopo Sacro obeunte munia
Deo O. M. Dicatum est
A.D. MDCCXXVIII
Letatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi
In Domum MOMNI [sic] Ibimus."
The eroded inscription is sometimes difficult to construe, but the final two lines are the opening of Psalm 122 "I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord." The cross is listed Grade II
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