Monks' Dormitory, Durham cathedral, catalogue no. XVIII

Found in 1895 in wall between church and Church Street, when new road made into churchyard

St Oswald

Very damaged

The stone seems to have been reused as a building stone, so that it is difficult to determine the head type. It could be A9 or B10. Only the broad faces are carved. In the centre of the head there seems to be a roughly cut sunken field surrounded by a circular roll moulding. On the arms strands of interlace appear to divide two-by-two around the centre. The strands are wide and cut in a shallow grooved technique. They could terminate in a pattern E knot.

The sunken bossed centre is not as common as those with a rounded boss, but the formula of surrounding the boss with simple strands of interlace with pattern E elements is found on several sites, such as Hexham (no. 11), and Darlington (nos. 1-2). This head could belong to Durham 2.

First half of eleventh century

Greenwell 1890-5c, 284, pl. 4, 2; (—) 1896-1905d, clxvii; Haverfield and Greenwell 1899, no. XVIII, 77-8, figs. on 78; Hodges 1905, 225; Cramp 1965a, 4

1. The following are general references to the Durham stones. Allen (1889, 229) includes Durham in the list of sites with coped stones and hogbacks, but the chapter house discoveries were not made by them. He appears to be referring to the collection in the Monks' Dormitory. Greenwell (1890-5a, xlix) makes general mention of discovery of nos. 5-8; Boyle (1892, 267) mentions discovery of stones in the chapter house; Collingwood 1932, 53.