Four Crosses, as the name suggests, is located around the point where the B4393 crosses the A483, which is the main road between Welshpool, 15km (12 miles) to the south and Oswestry, 11km (7.2 miles) to the north.

According to Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust, ‘this low-lying gravel terrace, covered by brown-earth deposits on the wide flood plain where Afon Efyrnwy converges on the Severn, has been exploited for millennia.’ An excavated Bronze Age barrow cemetery (NPRN 405422) in the north eastern part of the village provides ‘incidental evidence of Mesolithic, Iron Age and Roman activity.’ Aerial photography taken over many years has also ‘demonstrated the presence of extensive archaeological remains showing primarily as cropmarks, but largely undetectable as surface features.’

Offa’s Dyke has also had a significant influence on the development of Four Crosses – the alignment of The Street (a notably straight road running south to north through the centre of the village) is ‘dictated by the Dyke’s invisible presence.’ (See NPRN 309693) Offa’s dyke also ‘survives as a substantial earthwork’ at the southern end of the village (NPRN 275925). Evidence of ridge and furrow cultivation exists in fields due south of the war memorial and in fields west of Street Farm.

The name ‘Four Crosses’ suggests that the settlement has relatively modern origins, and ‘at the time of the tithe survey in 1842, Four Crosses consisted of a few houses at the road junction near Domgay Chapel and others beside The Street towards Llandysilio.’ The six-inch Ordnance Survey map published in 1887 depicted a relatively large village with several amenities. At the northern end of the village there was a school and a church dedicated to St. Tysilio (NPRN 306066). There was a police station a little further south down The Street. The main nucleus of the settlement, at the crossroads, was a little further still down The Street. Here there was a public house called the Golden Lion (Grade II listed), and a Congregational Chapel (NPRN 11322). Another public house, the Four Crosses, was located on the south western edge of the village, and there was another, the Coal House Inn, a little to the west of Four Crosses, on the other side of the Shropshire Union Canal. On the eastern side of the village there was a station on the Cambrian Railway and a public house called The Butchers Arms. There were also two more places of worship – a Baptist Chapel (NPRN 11320) and a Primitive Methodist chapel on Rhôs Common (NPRN 11321). Little had changed in the village by the time the second edition of the six-inch Ordnance Survey maps was published in 1902. It showed that a school had been built opposite the police station. The Four Crosses public house appeared to have been renamed ‘Canal House Inn’ but the Coal House Inn was no longer recorded.

In the twenty first century, Four Crosses retains several of its amenities. Llandysilio Church in Wales Primary School educates around eighty pupils. The Golden appears to be the only public house in the village which has remained open. The canal and the railway have gone, and a bypass has altered the layout of the road. The church remains open, although none of the nonconformist chapels appear to have survived as places of worship.

Souces: Historic Ordnance Survey maps and google maps; Clwyd Powys Archaeological Report no. 40 ‘Montgomeryshire Historic Settlements part two’ by R. J. Silvester, October 1992; Estyn report on Llandysilio Church in Wales Primary School published March 2017

M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 14th December 2020