This weathered stone column, darkened by centuries of exposure to the elements and industrial pollution, stands at what was once the highest point in Wolverhampton. Known as Wulfruna’s Column, this impressive monument features a tall shaft and once bore a cross, erected during the early 900s. It is named after Wulfrun, an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who founded an abbey on this site and gave her name to the town after the defeat of the Viking army at nearby Tettenhall in 910. Wulfrun herself had been a captive of the Danes, abducted from Tamworth Castle by Olaf Sihtricsson as a child in 943.

Despite the column carrying her name, there is no definitive evidence that Wulfrun was responsible for its installation. However, the structure’s history is fascinating and multi-layered. Archaeologists and historians believe that it originally served as a column in a Roman bathhouse, most likely at Wroxeter in Shropshire.

Once the fourth-largest Roman town in Britain, Wroxeter declined sharply as Roman authority waned. In the 500s, local Romano-Britons attempted to revive the town, carefully dismantling surviving buildings to rebuild, but this effort was abandoned when the population relocated to Shrewsbury to escape a plague.

The column eventually found its way to Wolverhampton’s highest hill, where it was repurposed and adorned with intricate carvings of birds, animals, and plants in a unique “Saxon Byzantine” style.

A cross was placed atop it, but like many such structures across England, it fell victim to Puritan iconoclasm during the 1600s. It is possible that Richard Baxter, who is known to have attempted to remove the cross at Kidderminster, led the effort to topple this one as well.

Today, Wulfruna’s Column stands as a remarkable piece of history, though it resides in a somewhat neglected corner of Wolverhampton. The intricate carvings that once adorned its surface are slowly fading, eroded by time and weather. To preserve this relic, perhaps a protective roof could be installed, both to safeguard the remaining details and to make it a more prominent feature of the city’s historical landscape.