Dunster Butter Cross
A weathered stump of Dunster's medieval market cross, moved from the high street to a quiet lane on the village edge
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Dunster put up this stone cross in the 15th century, close to the southern end of the high street, and only a broken, weathered shaft of it remains today. By the 1600s people were calling it the Butter Cross, since traders sold butter on this spot in the market, and by then its head and cross-arms had already gone, lost perhaps during the religious turmoil of the Reformation or the Civil War. The damaged shaft later ended up on a grassy bank beside the road to Alcombe, where it still stands today — a short octagonal stump on a base carved to suggest the hill on which Jesus was crucified. It’s a small, plain thing up close, but the cross is a two-minute walk from Dunster’s Yarn Market, and the rest of Dunster is worth exploring while you’re there.
