Plea for help to put up famous Chevin Cross (From Wharfedale Observer)
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Plea for help to put up famous Chevin Cross
3:35pm Thursday 7th March 2013 in News
The huge cross, which has been put up on Otley Chevin each year since 1969 to mark Easter
Volunteers are being sought to pull Otley’s famous Chevin Cross into place before Easter.
The 36ft high wooden monument has dominated the local skyline each spring since 1969, when the brainchild of the Otley Council of Christian Churches was installed for the first time as a symbol of hope.
This year the cross will be hauled into place on Saturday, March 16, so long as enough people step forward to lend a hand.
John Burland, of Otley Methodist Church, said: “At least 40 people are needed to pull the cross into place at Surprise View, above Otley, where it will remain for four weeks throughout the Easter celebrations.
“This year it is being erected at 9.30am and all helpers need to be at Surprise View by about 9.15am.”
The first cross was blown down in high winds and damaged on the first night after it had gone up, but was worked on overnight and erected again the next day, although six feet shorter than its original 36ft.
It has been installed for every Easter since and also, at the end of 1999, at New Year, to celebrate the new millennium.
The cross was replaced for Easter 2000, and the new structure, built to the higher height of the undamaged original, was created using timbers salvaged from the bombed Arndale Centre, in Manchester.
