Attached to wall at west end of nave

First noted 1846(?) built in as lintel of entrance to clock-room tower

St Mary

Badly damaged and worn

Only one visible face is carved.

A (broad): The shaft is edged by a double cable moulding and horizontally across the top by a thin roll moulding; the face is divided into three panels by two horizontal grooves. (i) and (iii) A design of interlocking triangles. (ii) A criss-cross pattern, composed of tiny raised diamonds.

B and D (narrow): Uncarvcd.

C (broad): Not visible.

Such geometric patterns incised or in low relief seem to be an eleventh-century feature (Kendrick 1949, pl. 45, 3; see also Corbridge 5 and Bolam 2 and 3).

Late eleventh century

Longstaffe 1846, 259; ?Walbran 1846, 11 and fig.; (—) 1887b; Boyle 1892, 671; Hodges 1894, 80-1; Hodges 1905, 231; Hodgkin 1913, 138; Pevsner 1953, 147-8; Morris 1976, 142

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.