Town Trail #04

The next stop on the Royston trail is the Royse Stone and the crossroads, which were once connected to the highstreet. Weighing in at two tonnes, the Royston Rock is centrally located at the heart of Royston at the cross. Dating back to the Ice Age, it is thought to have formed the base of a wayside cross set up here by Lady Roisia soon after 1066. The settlement, which grew up around the nearby Priory, became known as Crux Roheyes (Roisia’s Cross), later Roisia’s Town, from which the name Royston is derived. Looking to your left across the street, the two narrow roads are very typical of a medieval market town; this is where the original location for market stalls would have been. Carry on walking up the road and you reach Upton House, once the home of the brewer at the adjacent Phillips’ Brewery. Now it houses Work Way at Upton; an boutique co working space.

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