[4] Older theories, now outdated, included the view that they were erected to commemorate the conversion to Christianity of Peada of Mercia about 653.

[2] The earliest documentary evidence is by William Smith, the Rouge-Dragon Pursuivant at Arms of Elizabeth I, who was from Nantwich.

In 1585 he wrote 'two square crosses of stone, on steps, with certain images and writings thereon graven [standing] hard together.

They depict religious scenes, doll-like heads and beasts in panels, together with vine-scrolls, course interlace patterns and some dragons.

[9] One of the Crosses (before restoration in 1816) appears in a watercolour by William Alexander, from which they were engraved by John Byrne and published in Britannia Depicta, Part III, Buckinghamshire and Cheshire (1810).