British Museum, no. 80.3-13.5

First mentioned in 1873-4 found during restoration of church

St Cuthbert

Broken but unworn

A (broad): The top left-hand corner of an inscribed name-stone. The face is divided into quadrants by an incised cross, type F1, the arms of which reach the outer line of the broad incised border. The inner line of the border stops short before the arms of the cross. The inscription: (a) Within upper left-hand quadrant: A. The terminals are slightly seriffed. (b) Within border and terminals of cross-arms: Latin inscription, read clockwise, beginning and end only surviving. Insular majuscules:

 II ORAT[1]EPRO II F.—

 —.]INIB' II

The end of the inscription uses much smaller letters than the beginning, suggesting that it proved difficult to fit in.

B and D (narrow): Smoothly dressed.

C (broad): Roughly tooled.

Characteristic of this type of recumbent marker is the use of a fine stone, smoothly dressed; the geometric layout with half-round terminals for the cross is also found on name-stones at Hartlepool (nos. 2-4, 6-7) and Lindisfarne (nos. 24, 29 and 31-2). The Alpha and Omega is also found at Hartlepool (nos. 1 and 6). The inscription laid out in a lined border is, however, unique. Hübner (1876, 72) assumed, surely rightly, that there would have been an Omega in the upper right quadrant to balance the Alpha. He completed the border inscription thus:

 ORATE PRO FRATRIBUS NOSTRIS ET PRO

 CUNCTIS CHRISTIANIS HOMINIB(US)

First half of eighth century

Haigh 1875, 367; Hübner 1876, 72, no. 202, and fig.; Allen and Browne 1885, 352; Allen 1887, 118; Allen 1889, 217; Hall 1889, 262; Hodges 1905, 221; Hodgkin 1913, 58-9; Lethaby 1913, 152, figs. 6-7; (—) 1913-14b, 199; Howorth 1914, 47; Howorth 1917, III, 304; Brown 1921, 69; Smith 1923, 123, fig. 156; Page 1964, 79; Okasha 1971, 52-3, pl. 9; Morris 1974, 52-5, pl. 3, 2; Morris 1976, 140

1. The following are general references to the Billingham stones: Longstaffe 1858, 82; Hodges 1887-8a, 126; Hodges 1923-4c, 280; Fisher 1962, 50; Taylor 1978, 747.
2. I am grateful to Dr. L Freestone for identifying the stone type.
3. Inscription turns through 90° at this point.