Beacon on Tower of St Mary the Virgin Church, Monken Hadley
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Beacon on Tower of St Mary the Virgin Church, Monken Hadley by Christine Matthews as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
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Beacon on Tower of St Mary the Virgin Church, Monken Hadley
Image: © Christine Matthews Taken: Unknown
When the Queen had her Golden Jubilee in 2002 beacons were lit in celebration. One of these was in the Church Tower of St Mary the Virgin at Monken Hadley. This was a genuine beacon not a gas fired replica. The history of the beacon is as follows: on top of a turret at the South West angle of the tower is an iron cresset, fire pan or pitch-pot, an almost unique survivor of other days. It was erected by the monks to guide wayfarers crossing Enfield Chase by night, and travellers to or from St Albans, or the north. The beacon may have been used as late as 1745 to provide an alarm to warn of the Stuart rising in the North. It was used for a more pleasant occasion to mark the marriage of the Prince of Wales in 1863, when the future Edward VII married Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
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Image Location
Latitude
51.66149
Longitude
-0.194166