PRIESTS banning evil spirits and bearers carrying coffins used the same route centuries ago - now it's the turn of local historians to tour the sites of the town's mediaeval crosses.

On Sunday, anyone interested in the town's history is invited to join members of the Bromsgrove Society and clergy, led by the Rev Nigel Marns, to unveil specially-made plaques marking these important religious sites.

The plaques - off white with a Celtic cross symbol and Bromsgrove Society 1980 to 2005 written on - are gifts to the town from the society to mark its 25th anniversary.

The historians will also be putting up an information board and the date for their ceremony has been carefully chosen - it's on May 1, which is also known as Rogation Sunday, a spring celebration dating back to the sixth century which is still marked in the Church of England prayer book.

"Bromsgrove's mediaeval crosses played an important part in Rogation ceremonies or "cross days" before the Church of England became Protestant in the sixteenth century," said Dr Alan Richards, who has researched the crosses for the society.

"The catholic priest of St John's Church would lead a procession across the fields with a cross, banners and bells to bless the crops and drive away the devil and other evil spirits by reading the gospels at these crosses."

He said the exact dates of the crosses aren't known, but they are likely to have been put up following the orders of William de Bleys, Bishop of Worcester, in 1229 to mark every churchyard in his diocese.

They would have been major landmarks - the main one, the Market Cross at the junction of St John Street and High Street, would have been 20 to 30 feet high and painted in gold. The Golden Cross Hotel can probably trace its name back to those times.

As well as marking the boundaries of ecclesiastical properties, they were used for the convenience of bearers carrying coffins. On long journeys to a churchyard for a burial, they would stop at each one to offer a prayer for the soul of the departed.

"The seven crosses identified so far means that for a small market town of between 500 and 600 people in mediaeval times, Bromsgrove was very rich in religious symbols," Dr Richards said.

"The number of crosses indicates a very extensive monastic ownership of property in the town," he added.

Some of Bromsgrove's crosses were probably destroyed as early as the 1540s after the dissolution of the monasteries and in 1643, the Puritan Parliament ordered the destruction of all crosses, images and pictures.

By the end of the civil war in 1651, they were all likely to have gone - but at least after Sunday, they won't be forgotten.