High Cross, Leicestershire

High Cross is the name given to the crossroads of the Roman roads of Watling Street (now the A5) and Fosse Way on the border between Leicestershire and Warwickshire, England. A naturally strategic high point, High Cross was "the central cross roads" of Anglo-Saxon and Roman Britain. It was the site of a Romano-British settlement known as Venonae or Venonis, with an accompanying fort.

High Cross has marked several frontiers through history. In the Iron Age the area is believed to have been the frontier between the Corieltauvi and Dobunni tribes. In the Roman era, the Fosse Way delimited Roman settlement in the early period of occupation. In the later Anglo-Saxon period, Watling Street was the border between the Viking controlled Danelaw and Saxon territory. Reflecting this, the boundaries of four parishes (boundaries which began to be established from the Anglo-Saxon period or even earlier) still meet today at High Cross, while the border between Leicester and Warwickshire, established in the early 11th century, reflects the Danelaw boundary.