Monks' Dormitory, Durham cathedral, catalogue no. XL

Found in restoration of 1864, possibly in south wall of nave, which was taken down. Kept in Vicarage garden until 1896 when donated to chapter library, Durham

St Mary

Broken but unworn

The shaft is edged by a double flat-band moulding with an incised median line, which returns as a horizontal moulding with two irregular incised lines, to form two panels.

A (broad): (i) The calf-length hem-lines and lower legs of two figures. Their feet are carved so as to appear frontal. (ii) Three frontal figures holding books in their upturned hands. Their haloes and tunic hems and belts form a continuous line. Their faces are wedge-shaped with lightly incised round eyes and straight mouths. Their tunics are double-outlined with vertical slashed folds.

B (narrow): Only a fragment of plain plait with median-incised strands survives. There is a grooved moulding visible on the surviving edge.

C (broad): Possibly reshaped. There is a staff, possibly a cross, with double incisions in the centre. A flat-band moulding with an incised median line is visible on the surviving edge.

D (narrow): Broken.

The pattern of figures holding books set in panels of twins and triplets is most closely paralleled on Aycliffe 3. However, this cross shares certain features with Gainford 1, namely similar stone, the figures, and the plain plait on the surviving narrow face. It seems that either Aycliffe or Gainford copied the Auckland St Andrew cross in an Anglo-Scandinavian style, and that both Aycliffe and Gainford shared common traditions.

Second half of tenth century

Stuart 1867, 64-5, pl. cxiii, 12; Boyle 1892, 671; Hodges 1894, 80-1; Haverfield and Greenwell 1899, no. XL, 103, figs. on 104; Hodges 1905, 230 and fig.; Prior and Gardner 1912, 122, fig. 102; Hughes and Faulkner 1925, 19; Rivoira 1933, 171, pl. 587; Gardner 1935, 39, fig. 23; Kendrick 1941b, 7-8; Kendrick 1949, 61, fig. 4; Cramp 1965a, 7; Bailey 1980, 191-4, fig. 56.

1. The following are general references to the Gainford stones: Greenwell 1880-9b, lxviii; Allen and Browne 1885, 352; (—) 1887-8b, 373. Brock 1888, 176, refers to stones in a graaden (later taken to Durham) and mentions illustrations by STuarts but does not describe them individually. (—) 1905-6b, 343-4, refers to discovery of stones in 1864-5 restoration, and there is also a reference to the finding in 1905 of another stone in the field west of the churchyard wall, and to the discovery of bones and a sword in the churchyard in 1889.