Derwen Cross

PricingFreeFree for all visitors

Free entry for everyone

Entry

Free for everyone

Pricing details

Free entry for everyone; no membership card is needed.

ParkingNo car park

Arrive on foot, by bike or by public transport.

Parking details

Cadw lists no designated parking and neither the council nor the Friends of Friendless Churches publishes anything for the village, so the status is recorded as none. The lanes around the church are narrow single-track village roads. The churchyard is the parish's; its west gate opens from the lane beside the small green with the war memorial, bench and post box, and the cross stands by the south porch of the church.

Driving pin: the churchyard's west gate on the village lane, 22 m from Cadw's marker on the church and 21 m from the cross. By road: minor roads from the B5105, or from the A494 south of Ruthin. No rail, bus or cycle route named by Cadw.

About

Derwen Cross, Croes Derwen, is an ornate medieval preaching cross with striking Christian carvings in the circular churchyard of St Mary's, Derwen, a small village between Ruthin and Corwen. Carved in the 15th century and among the best preserved in this part of Wales, it rises 6.5 feet, or 14 feet with its stepped stone pedestal. The octagonal shaft is decorated with foliage and crowned heads, and the four sides of its box-shaped head carry Biblical scenes beneath ogee canopies: the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John, the Coronation of the Virgin, the Virgin and Child, and the Archangel Michael with his scales and sword ready for Judgement Day. It stands a few metres from the south porch of the church, which is in the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches, opens daily and is worth a visit for its late 15th-century rood screen and rare panelled loft. Visitors call the carving amazing and unexpected; allow five minutes and look at all four sides.

Open in daylightFrom Cadw's published times

Open any reasonable time in daylight

Opening times may change at short notice.

Open all year and viewed during reasonable daylight hours in the parish churchyard, which publishes no hours; no admission charge. St Mary's church beside it, in the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches, is open daily, though one visitor found it shut, and its door can be hard to reopen if closed from inside. Cadw may close monuments at short notice in extreme weather.

Terrain level 2, easy: churchyard paths and grass. No facilities. Access to the church's rood loft is not permitted. Drones are not permitted.

Photo: The carved 15th-century preaching cross in Derwen churchyard, beside the porch of St Mary's Church. Maggie Cox, CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_fine_15th_Century_preaching_cross_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3500745.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.