The Trumpington Cross, made of gold and garnet, was found on the skeleton of a girl aged between 14 and 18 in one of the earliest Christian burials in Britain, unearthed near Cambridge.

The teenager was buried between around 650AD and 680AD in a very rare “bed burial”, just 15 of which have been found in the UK, laid in the ground in a bed which had a wooden frame with metal brackets and straw mattress.

She was surrounded by treasured possessions including gold pins, glass beads, an iron knife and a chain which would have hung from her belt.

But it was the cross that excited Cambridge University archaeologists, marking her out as an early convert to Christianity and – as the earliest Christians were from noble families – indicating she was of aristocratic or even royal blood.

She was discovered in 2011 at Trumpington Meadows, just outside Cambridge, where a new housing development is being built on land owned by Grosvenor.

The cross, thought to be worth more than £80,000, has been donated by Grosvenor to Cambridge University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) , where it will go on display with the other grave goods.

Jody Joy, senior curator at the museum, said: “MAA has one of the best collections of Anglo-Saxon artefacts in the British Isles – and we are indebted to Grosvenor for their generosity in…

Community leaders, unions and churches are backing a call for the club to increase the pay of workers employed by contractors, such as waitresses and cleaners.

The club said it pays permanent employees the Voluntary Living Wage, which is higher than the statutory national figure.

Manchester Citizens will hand in a letter on Thursday to the club, urging it to take a “community-first business approach” to ensure the cost of living is met for low-paid workers.

The group, part of the Citizens UK charity, said if new signing Alexis Sanchez is paid £400,000 a week, as some have reported, it will take him just 82 minutes in a game to earn the annual salary of a low-paid stadium worker.

Sanchez’s pay, and millions reportedly given to his agent, reveals a “grotesque tale of two halves”, with some staff on £7 an hour, said the group.

Group chairman the Reverend Ian Rutherford, City Centre Minister at Methodist Central Hall, Manchester, said: “As the winter transfer window closes many workers at Old Trafford will be choosing between putting the heating on or a hot meal.

“We’ve heard many stories about the real cost of life on low pay for workers at Old Trafford, many of whom are employed directly and struggling to live with dignity.

“We are calling on Manchester United, which already makes such a positive contribution to the UK economy, to show leadership by recognising the…

Canon Jeremy Pemberton, a Church of England (C of E) priest for more than 30 years, had his permission to officiate revoked after he married Laurence Cunnington in April 2014.

He was also denied a licence to officiate in the diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, which left him unable to take up a job offer at the King’s Mill Hospital in Nottinghamshire.

Canon Pemberton brought an employment tribunal against the former acting Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, the Rt Rev Richard Inwood.

The tribunal dismissed his claims of discrimination and harassment and his case was also rejected by the employment appeal tribunal in 2016.

He renewed his fight at London’s
Court of Appeal on Wednesday, where his lawyers argued the earlier rulings should be overturned.

Sean Jones QC, for Canon Pemberton, told the court the bishop’s decisions which barred him from officiating were wrong because the C of E does not have a fixed rule on same-sex marriage among members of the clergy.

He also said C of E clergy members in civil partnerships were allowed to officiate and that those were “effectively indistinguishable” from same-sex marriage.

Canon Jeremy Pemberton (right) and husband Laurence Cunnington at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as the gay priest who was prevented from working as a hospital chaplain after marrying his partner,…

Inspectors are increasingly coming across those who want to “actively pervert” the purpose of education, according to Amanda Spielman.

In a speech on Thursday, she will warn schools that they should not assume that the “most conservative voices” of a particular faith group speak for everyone, and that they must not be afraid to “call out” any practices that they feel could have a negative impact on young people.

She will also offer her support to the headteacher of a school that was forced to back down over plans to ban young pupils from wearing the hijab in class, saying school leaders have the right to set uniform rules “as they see fit”.

Ms Spielman will tell a Church of England education conference in central London that while many faith schools are good at promoting tolerance of religions, lifestyles and cultures, there is a difference between showing tolerance and respect for others and “privileging all belief above criticism.”

“Ofsted inspectors are increasingly brought into contact with those who want to actively pervert the purpose of education,” she will say.

“Under the pretext of religious belief, they use education institutions, legal and illegal, to narrow young people’s horizons, to isolate and segregate, and in the worst cases to indoctrinate impressionable minds with extremist ideology.

“Freedom of…

The 49-year-old American actor told USA Today the new movie will be “the biggest film in history”, adding fans should “stay tuned”.

He said: “I won’t tell you how he’s [Gibson] going to go about it but I’ll tell you this much: the film he’s going to do is going to be the biggest film in history.”

Produced on a $30 million budget and detailing the twelve hours before Christ’s crucifixion, The Passion of the Christ grossed $371 million in box offices across North America and $611 million around the world.

In the sequel, Gibson – who won two Academy Awards for the 1995 epic war film, Braveheart – will focus on Christ’s resurrection.

Mr Caviezel (pictured above) added: “We’re trying to craft this in a way that’s cinematically compelling and enlightening so that it shines new light, if possible, without creating some weird thing.”

He revealed that shooting on the new picture is yet to commence.

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