TALK OF THE TOWN

I attended an interesting talk all about old Ilkley last night, a fascinating glimp's into how the village became a town, lots of slides from the past 100 years although I think the speaker may have missed a trick by not showing a comparison shot of the buildings & streets as they are now to help us put a handle on exactly where she was talking about. At one stage she talked about the parish church & the old Saxon Crosses so I popped down to take a look.
THE HISTORY BIT
The year is 800 A.D. There stand outside the small stone built church of Ilkley (of which two Saxon window arches of Roman origin still exist), two three metre stone shafts, each capped with a separate Cross-piece. A third shaft is in preparation.
For around 1200 years these three Crosses have been powerful silent emblems of the Gospel of Christ in IIkley. From 1860 to the present day is the period of time since the rebuilding and enlarging of the ancient IIkley Parish Church.