The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve tall and lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with crosses erected in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had them built between 1291 and about 1295 in memory of his beloved wife Eleanor of Castile. The King and Queen had been married for 36 years and she stayed by the King’s side through his many travels. While on a royal progress, she died in the East Midlands in November 1290. The crosses, erected in her memory, marked the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was transported to Westminster Abbey near London. The crosses stood at Lincoln, Grantham and Stamford, all in Lincolnshire; Geddington and Hardingstone in Northamptonshire; Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire; Woburn and Dunstable in Bedfordshire; St Albans and Waltham (now Waltham Cross) in Hertfordshire; Cheapside in London; and Charing (now Charing Cross) in Westminster. Three of the medieval monuments – those at Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham Cross – survive more or less intact; but the other nine, other than a few fragments, are lost. The largest and most ornate of the twelve was the Charing Cross. Several memorials and elaborated reproductions of the crosses have been erected including, the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross at Charing Cross Station (built 1865). Background Procession and burials Eleanor of Castile died on 28 November 1290 at Harby, Nottinghamshire. Edward and Eleanor loved each other and much like his father, Edward was very devoted to his wife and remained faithful to her throughout their married lives. He was deeply affected by her death and displayed his grief by erecting twelve so-called Eleanor crosses, one at each place where her funeral cortège stopped for the night. Following her death the body of Queen Eleanor was carried to Lincoln, about away, where she was embalmed – probably either at the Gilbertine priory of St Catherine in the south of the city, or at the priory of the Dominicans. Her viscera, less her heart, were buried in the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral on 3 December. Eleanor's other remains were carried to London, a journey of about , that lasted 12 days. Her body was buried in Westminster Abbey, at the feet of her father-in-law King Henry III on 17 December; while her heart was buried in the church of the London Dominicans' priory at Blackfriars (a house that she and