It is also referred to by Daniel Defoe in his Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, in reporting the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675: "... a townsman being at Queen's Cross upon a hill on the south side of the town, about two miles ( 2 miles ) off, saw the fire at one end of the town then newly begun, and that before he could get to the town it was burning at the remotest end, opposite where he first saw it."