Whiteleaf Cross

[2][3] The Act for enclosing the common lands in the Parish, completed on 23 September 1839, specifically required that: in order to preserve within the parish of Monks Risborough the ancient memorial or landmark there called White Cliffe Cross and the Commissioners were to allot to the Lord of the Manor the cross itself and so much of the land immediately surrounding it as shall in the judgment of the Commissioners be necessary and sufficient for rendering the same conspicuous and that it should not be planted or enclosed and should for ever thereafter remain open.

[4] Various books published in and since the 18th century have speculated on the origin of the cross, but without any supporting evidence.

[5] Theories included a Saxon celebration of a victory over the Danes, a phallic symbol later Christianised, a direction sign for a (non-existent) medieval monastery, soldiers in the Civil War amusing themselves when they had nothing better to do, and a seventeenth-century alternative to a village cross.

[6] One, from 1922, is in the collection of the British Council,[6] another, from 1931,[7] is in the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.

The cross is protected by the county as part of the 11-hectare (27 acre) Whiteleaf Hill Nature Reserve.