Appendix B item (stones wrongly associated with pre-Conquest period)

Slab reused as a tympanum above the north doorway of the nave. The slab was not quite wide enough and required an additional piece of stone on the east side. The straight joint is clearly visible. The main slab carries a carving in low relief of a dragon with a long looping tail. The tail splits into two strands that sprawl across the face of the stone repeatedly twisting back upon themselves to form circular loops around raised centres. The carving appears truncated and does not continue onto the additional piece of stone. A small arch, possibly a window-head, has at some time been cut into the lower edge of the slab, but this has been filled in with a similar, less weathered piece of stone and the carving faithfully recreated.

This tympanum is odd. The creature looks like a twelfth-century carving but the slab on which it is carved seems to have been reused from elsewhere, perhaps an earlier phase of the building, because it was not quite big enough to form the complete width of the tympanum. The slab may have been damaged and repaired in the process of setting it over the north doorway, or perhaps it was originally a different shape re-cut to act as a tympanum. It is therefore possible that the carving is a later eleventh-century rather than twelfth-century piece.