GOOD FRIDAY HOT CROSS BUNS
GOOD FRIDAY HOT CROSS BUNS Hot cross buns were first made by Brother Thomas Rodcliffe, a 14th century monk at St Alban’s Abbey who, in 1361, developed the recipe, originally called the ‘Alban bun’ and distributed them to the poor on Good Friday. [That story explains the eating of sweet buns on Good Friday, in case you, like me, never made sense of it. It doesn’t explain, however, why Baker’s Delight sell Hot Cross Buns from Christmas and all through Lent]. The Benedictine monastery of St Albans was dedicated to England’s first saint who was martyred by the Romans. The monastery was originally endowed in 793 AD, the first Abbot appropriately named Wiligod, and by 1163, it was recognised as England’s premier abbey. It did not, of course, survive the reformation -the monastery and all the monastic buildings were destroyed, the offices sequestered, the gold and silver plate seized and the monks banished. The town purchased the monastery church as a parish church (C of E) and the Lady...