The Corpus: Sockburn 20

Volume I: County Durham and Northumberland

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Current Display: Sockburn 20, Durham

Overview

Object type: Hogback, in two joining pieces [1]

Measurements: L. 157.5 cm (62 in); W. 19 cm (7.5 in); D. (centre) 47 cm (18.5 in), (end) 33 cm (13 in)

Stone type: Medium-grained yellow sandstone

Plate numbers in printed volume: Pl. 145.765-766

Corpus volume reference: Vol 1 p. 142-143

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Present Location

Conyers Chapel

Evidence for Discovery

Church unroofed and abandoned in 1838. Before this, carved stones noticed built into walls (Surtees 1823, 249). After abandonment of church several references to carved stones lying either in church or in Sockburn Hall, but very few described until after Knowles's excavation and bringing together of all known fragments in re-roofed Conyers Chapel in 1900.

Church Dedication

All Saints

Present Condition

Almost complete, broken at one end and dressed back on one side

Description

The ridge is composed of a complex moulding (basically of flat-band type). The top is squared, hollow and splayed. The unbroken gable-end is furnished with a wide flat-band moulding, which terminates on the ridge with a small reptilian head.

A and C (long): Three rows of tegulae, type 2b, curve in line with the ridge.

B (end): Broken off.

D (end): Dressed smooth.

Discussion

This type of long hogback with tegulation as its main feature is best paralleled in the north-west. Lang (1967, 134-6) compares the miniscule head with Cross Canonby. This very small anonymous head is probably a development of the end beast.

Date

Last quarter of tenth century

References

Knowles 1896-1905b, 118, no. 12; Hodges 1905, 237; Lang 1967, 134 et passim, pl. 41; Schmidt 1973, 71, fig. 28C; Lang 1984, 162, no. 1

Endnotes

1. The following are general references to the Sockburn stones: Surtees 1823, 249; Longstaffe 1858, 82; (—) 1869-79f, liv; Allen and Browne 1885, 352; (—) 1887c; Eastwood 1887, 347; Allen 1889, 229; (—) 1889-90b, 132; (—) 1899-1900a, 60; (—) 1903, xiii; (—) 1909-10c, 239; Collingwood 1927, 148, 166, 169; (—) 1951-6a, 213; Pevsner 1953, 211; Lang 1972, 235-6; Schmidt 1973, 68-77; Morris 1976, 144; Bailey 1980, 91.