Arm, type E10. Upper arm has been cut off smoothly.

A (broad): The arm is edged with a triple moulding: on the outer edge a narrow roll moulding; a row of bold pellets; a flat-band which opens out into the uncarved parts of the head. In the centre of the cross-head and slightly to the left is a roundel containing five pellets. Touching this on the right is the remains of a seated figure. A voluminous garment falls in a bell-like curve over the knees to the ankles. The folds are indicated by shallow vertical lines. The back of the figure is partly hidden by a chair which has a rectangular side conceived in the form of a cross with pierced arm-pits. An impression of the drapery of the figure is visible through the holes. The feet of the figure and of the legs of the chair have been lost. On the left arm of the cross is a horizontally placed bust with hand or hands raised in front of his face. The head is round and smooth and there could be a cowl falling above the hand. He has a grotesquely large round eye with a dot centre and lightly marked nose and mouth. He is shown in a loose voluminous garment, the folds of which are indicated with widely spaced incised lines. Just to the right of the head of this figure is an incised cross. On the right arm of the cross is the remains of another cross lightly incised and above it part of another head. The figure appears to have a round tonsured hair-line and a round eye with a dot centre.

B (narrow): Broken off.

C (broad): Traces of a double moulding survive: outer, fine roll, and inner, pelleted. In the centre is a roundel which has been almost obliterated, but it seems to have contained a cross surrounded by flat-band and pelleted mouldings. On either side of it is a stag with long branching antlers which curve round the central motif. Their fore legs are close together and their back legs separate. The head of that on the left touches the ear of a smaller quadruped below. The head and the back of the creature below follow the curve of the central roundel. Below the jaws of the stag on the right is a pointed plant-like feature.

D (narrow): Plain.

E (upper side of horizontal arms): There are the remains of a crude three-strand plain plait within a grooved moulding.

F (under side of horizontal arms): There is a dowel hole in the centre and on either side there are traces of a grooved three-strand plain plait.

In style of carving this piece stands apart from others in Bernicia. The method of creating relief is different on each face. On the figured face the figures are outlined and grooved back. On the stag face the background is picked back around the animals. The bold pelleted frame might have derived from near-by Wycliffe but the iconography is unique. On face A the two horizontally placed figures seem clearly to be clerics: one has a tonsure, the other possibly a cowl, but both wear voluminous garments and are apparently shown in the act of prayer; both have small crosses near their heads. The central figure seated in a chair could also be a cleric. Such seated figures are known, for example, on Scottish crosses (e.g. Henderson 1967, pls. 44-5). It is impossible to say whether the central roundel with five pellets is significant. The roundels could symbolize the Five Wounds of Christ, or could merely be a decorative centre. It is possible that this face could depict the deceased (a cleric), and is adapting the Scandinavian model with its secular figures, such as are found at Sockburn (no. 5) and Kirklevington (Bailey 1980, pl. 57). The single figures of stags are also found on Anglo-Scandinavian sculpture in the area, for example at Sockburn (no. 7) and Brompton (Haverfield and Greenwell 1899, no. LV1, 119); and at Kirklevington, as at Lancaster, Heysham and Dacre, the stag is also shown with a hound (Scott 1959, 279-87, and Bailey 1974, 232-41). However, the usual form of this motif consists of a single hart, and the hound is depicted leaping on its back. It seems here the motif is combined with something else. Two stags on either side of a cross, possibly with a plant, could well illustrate the other symbol of the hart panting after the water-brooks (Psalm 42, 1). The other beast below could either be a hound from a stag and hound scene, or possibly another animal associated with the water-brooks, or a fountain of life scene (Klingender 1971, 176-7, pls. 110, 113). In his discussion of the stag and hound motif, Bailey (1980, 72) considers that it became popular in Northumbria in Anglo-Scandinavian art. If here the scene is assimilated with other more bookish depictions of the hart, then one should perhaps put it late in the pre-Conquest period. The tonsured figures and the seated figure on a chair seem to provide an ecclesiastical context for this piece, which is difficult to explain at this site.