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Delville Wood 1916

The Weeping Cross

In Pietermaritzburg there is a simple wooden cross which "weeps" every year in July, when it oozes a reddish-brown resin. For more than 65 years this inexplicable phenomenon, which borders on the supernatural, has regularly occurred for a week or two around the 14th July, the anniversary of the Delville Wood Battle. A legend has grown to the effect that when the last survivor of the battle fades away, as old soldiers are reputed to do, the cross will cease its mysterious weeping. This wooden cross is made from salvaged timber taken from the ravaged trees of Delville Wood and it was originally erected shortly after World War 1 in the Natal Carbineers Garden, next to the City Hall in Pietermaritzburg.

The vertical beam is inscribed "JULY 1916" and the crossbar is inscribed "2nd SAI" which honours the Second Battallion of the South African Infantry Brigade. This Brigade, in carrying out its orders to hold the front line at all costs, decimated in 6 days of heroic fighting under hellish conditions.

In 1958 the cross was moved to its present site in the MOTH Circular Garden of Remembrance and since then the "weeping" has become particularly noticeable from the knots at either end of the crossbar and the mystery has often been reported in the press. This "miracle cross" as it has been dubbed, has been the subject of research and found to be constructed of timber from Pinus Sylvester, a pine commonly found in Europe and the annual exudation is normal pine resin with a trace of linseed oil, the latter being accounted for by the application of the oil as a preservative when the cross was moved. The mystery deepens when it is considered that the existing trees in France ooze resin during the heat and moisture in summer, whereas the Pietermaritzburg cross only "weeps" in winter.