Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle upon Tyne, no. 1978.24

Largest piece (fragment b) dug up in churchyard in May 1885. Fragment a found in same month built into wall of adjoining farmhouse; fragment c found in garden wall of farm. Fourth stone, mentioned as found in churchyard but which Hall (1889) had not seen (Collingwood 1927, fig 44), now missing.

St Peter

Very worn

The shaft was originally dowelled between the fragments.

Fragment a. A (broad): Part of a flat-band moulding survives. The face is filled by a bush-scroll, of which parts of four pairs of heart-shaped volutes springing from a straight central stern survive. The spaces between the volutes are filled by small triangular leaves on stiff stems with possible leaf-flowers between the lowest volutes. B (narrow): Five pairs of volutes of a tree-scroll with a chain-linked central stem contain small rounded berry bunches. The volutes are tightly pressed against the central stern. C (broad): Part of two panels divided by a double flat-band moulding. (i) Almost obliterated but seems to contain a central twist terminating in two berry bunches. (ii) An interlaced formation which seems to imply the beginning of an interlaced scroll. D (narrow): Part of a flat-band moulding survives on one edge. This face has an interlaced scroll. In the centre is a pair of triple berried bunches hanging on long straight stems. There are interlace stems above and below. On the right a long irregularly shaped feature could be a leaf.

Fragment b. A (broad): Cut away. B (narrow): Nearly worn away, although a small area at the base has a chain-linked scroll with side-branching berry bunches. The berry bunches are small and rounded. C (broad): The upper portion is very worn. However it seems to show a chain-linked plant-scroll which is organized in the centre into diamond-shaped medallions enclosing circular berry bunches. Towards the base the links straighten into rows and sprout side scrolls which terminate in small round berry bunches. D (narrow): Worn away. Slight traces of plant stems. A dowel-hole survives at the top.

Fragment c. A (broad): Broken away. Part of a dowel-hole survives. B (narrow): Broken away. C (broad): Part of a chain-linked scroll survives. On either side there are two straight links with side-branching small berry bunches. In the centre is another straight link which terminates in a small pair of berry bunches. Below, the strands interlace to begin another chain. D (narrow): Broken away.

These fragments have suffered greatly since Collingwood drew them in relation to the Hexham school. There are more breaks and more wear, and one fragment seems to be lost (Collingwood 1927, fig. 44). The different edge mouldings which Collingwood'saw and which caused him to consider that these were part of different monuments are not visible today. To my mind they can all be reconstructed into one cross-shaft with fragment a at the top and the small fragment c at the base, since whichever face is considered this must be greater in depth than the other two stones. The missing fragment, however, could have fitted below this, since one would expect the shaft to be dowelled somewhere in the middle. Each face is ornamented by plant-scrolls, which, unlike the earlier Hexham scrolls, are not continuous but divided into panels. The straight stems and small vestigial berry bunches, as well as the thin tangled and over-elaborate composition, all indicate a late date. The chain-linked scroll could well derive from a cross such as Nunnykirk (face C). The straight tangled stems and the tiny berry bunches can be paralleled in ninth-century metalwork such as the Windsor sword-pommel (Brøndsted 1924, fig. 118) or the Kirkoswald brooch (Wilson 1964, pl. 19, fig. 28).

Last half of ninth century

Hall 1889, 269-76; (—) 1889-90a; Tomlinson 1891, 224; Hodges 1893, 71; Collingwood 1925, 85, fig. 14; Collingwood 1927, 34-5, 106, fig. 44; Collingwood 1932, 41; Dodds 1940, 165; Pevsner 1957, 150; Cramp 1965b, 7-8; Cramp and Miket 1982, no. 38