At Sandbach are two stone crosses which are thought to be closely connected with the conversion of Cheshire. The story goes that Peada, son of Penda the heathen king of Mercia, wished to marry the Christian daughter of Oswiu of Northumbria. To win the maiden the young man consented to forsake his old religion and become a Christian; whereupon the crosses were set up to commemorate his conversion and marriage. If you look carefully at the Sandbach crosses you will see that the Angles of Mercia had reached a very high level of art in sculptured stones. Carved upon them are several scenes in the life of our Lord, the Nativity in the stable at Bethlehem with the ox and the ass kneeling before the infant Christ, the Crucifixion with S. Mary and Apostles below, Christ carrying the Cross, and Christ in glory with S. Peter on His right hand bearing the keys of heaven. Few crosses were, however, carved so elaborately as these Sandbach crosses. The majority were doubtless of wood, set up in the middle of the open space round which clustered the huts and wattled dwellings of the inhabitants. Others consisted of a plain stone shaft set upright in the ground or on a base of stone steps, sometimes rudely adorned with scroll-work such as you may see on the fragments of a cross preserved in the churchyard of Prestbury. Most of them have perished, broken into fragments where they fell, or have been used for repairs to damaged buildings. Many were wantonly destroyed in the seventeenth century during the Civil War. [Illustration: ANGLIAN CROSSES AT SANDBACH] Crosses were set up by the wayside at the junction of important highways or in towns at the crossing of the principal streets, as at Chester. Here in the open air the monks would gather round them bands of listeners, and preach the Word of God. Afterwards close to the cross was erected an edifice of wood or wattles in which the services of the Church were held, and in still later times these wooden churches would be replaced by stone buildings. Nowhere, however, in Cheshire are there any churches or even portions of churches remaining which can be said to have been built by our early Saxon forefathers. The church of S. John's, Chester, is said to have been founded by King Aethelred of Mercia in the year 689. An ancient legend states that Aethelred 'was admonished to erect a church on the spot where he should find a white hind'. In the church you may see fragments of an ancient wall-painting or 'fresco' on one of the pillars of the nave which illustrates this story. A church certainly did exist here in very early times, for we read that in later days Leofric, Earl of Mercia, _repaired_ and enriched the church of S. John's, which may mean that the earlier wooden church had fallen into decay, and a more substantial building of stone was erected in its place.