Mab's Cross

Mab's Cross stands on Standishgate, the main road out of town toward the north. The stone cross dates from the thirteenth century and is one of the oldest standing monuments in Wigan. The original shaft survives, set on a stepped base, and the cross is a listed building.

The cross is associated with the legend of Lady Mabel Bradshaigh, whose penance walk made it the most storied piece of medieval stonework in the town. It sits in a small garden beside the road and is easy to miss if you don't know it's there, but the story behind it and the age of the stone make it worth a few minutes of anyone's time.

things to do sight
A story
According to legend, Lady Mabel Bradshaigh walked barefoot from Wigan to the cross every week for a year as penance for having remarried while her first husband Sir William Bradshaigh was away at the Crusades. The story, embellished over the centuries, was incorporated by Sir Walter Scott into his novel "The Betrothed" in 1825, making Mab's Cross one of the few medieval Lancashire monuments to have inspired Victorian romantic fiction.