My Chevin Cross memories

Revd. David Woodward
Minister of Otley Methodist Church 1980 to 1989

Before coming to Otley I had been told of the tradition of erecting the cross on the Chevin over the Easter period. It was stored at the old vicarage.

“David, can you give us a hand to move the cross?” I was asked one day. “we are moving it to new storage and would like a hand.”

“That’s fine.” I said, and arrived in trainers and some casual clothes on the Saturday morning. I was thinking “How many people does it take to move a cross?” I had in mind something that would be about 10 foot high and comparatively light in weight. I was soon to encounter the reality! Ten foot was about the smallest dimension of one of the parts that goes in to making up the Chevin cross and the weight was far greater than I expected.

On the Saturday before Passion Sunday I again turned up, this time in boots and leather work gloves. It was fascinating to first move the parts to a flat bed lorry, then drive up to the Chevin, manhandle the parts over the wall and find that there were those present who knew what they were doing. After a while the upright had attached to it the cross piece, all laid out horizontally on Chevin top. Steel ropes were then attached – four to act as guy ropes and a fifth to be used to pull the whole structure into an upright position. How many men (and later women!) does it take to erect the cross? About forty. Some to heave the cross upright, and others to pull on the guy ropes to keep it square and stop it from twisting. Back down in the town I looked up and had a new respect for the addition to the skyline.

One year I was unable to help, but was in the manse and saw the huddle of people as dots on the chevin. Before long the cross was seen slowly moving to its upright position. It was a moving experience seen at a distance.

Good Friday was a time, in the afternoon, when my wife Kathy and I would walk up to the cross. It was part of our devotions for that day, after our morning service in church.

Easter morning at 7.00 a.m. was a time for worship around the cross, with people coming from miles around as well as the town to celebrate our Lord rising from the dead.

One Easter, the clocks went forward an hour for British Summer Time. I awoke at 5.45 a.m. thinking I had plenty of time, then suddenly realised that my clock had not been put forward. I had 15 minutes to get up, get out and take myself, wife and hymn sheets to the Chevin. We arrived at 7.01 a.m. Five minutes later another minister arrived, apologising for being late with his youth group. “Think nothing of it.” I said. After all I was there before him!

Mr. D. B. Good once told me how he came to make the first cross to be erected on the Chevin. He had one of his workmen take a van with various sizes of hardboard in it to the Chevin. He had previously stood in Kirkgate and noted the spot where the cross was to be erected. When his workman was in place he proceeded to take out the hardboard, one sheet at a time. This was in the days before mobile telephones, so a signal had been arranged between Kirkgate and the Chevin. When a hardboard sheet was held up that was the right width for the upright D.B. waved a white handkerchief. This particular sheet was then marked. In this way they worked out, from the width, the dimensions for the cross to be the visible symbol that it remains to this day. Ingenious.

We happened to be on the Chevin one day when Concorde was doing a take off, short flight and landing at Leeds/Bradford Airport. I never forget the sight of being a little way down the hill, and seeing both cross and airplane etched against the sky. It seemed that Jesus the pioneer for all people, and a pioneering aircraft were joined together for one fleeting moment.

My favourite story – used in illustration in other places - concerns one of the Cubs from our Cub Pack. Fred King had taken some of them to walk up to the Cross. On standing so close and gazing up at this massive symbol one of the cubs said “Jesus must have been a giant to fit on that cross!” Of course, he was!