Volunteers carrying the cross up the hillVolunteers carrying the cross up the hill
Volunteers carrying the cross up the hill

Best pictures as cross is carried up to Otley Chevin to look over town during Easter

A team of volunteers have carried a huge cross to the top of a Yorkshire landmark.

Volunteers help put the 30ft cross at the top of Otley Chevin hill each year. The event marks the onset of Easter in the town.

This year, Churches Together in Otley has recruited around 50 people to help carry the cross to the top of the hill.

They gathered on Saturday morning (Apr 2) to make the painstaking journey. The cross will sit atop the hill, overlooking the town of Otley, until April 30 at 9am.

An early Easter service will be held on Easter Sunday at 7am at the cross.

The Chevin cross was first installed in 1969, has now become a well-known Easter symbol. It is put up each year, two weeks before Easter and removed two weeks after.

The current cross is made from wood that was salvaged after the Manchester IRA bomb on June 15 1996.

Now a local tradition organised by Churches Together, the cross has been installed every year apart from 2001 because of restrictions caused by foot and mouth disease, and in 2020 and 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.