Unknown. The stone was apparently 'embedded in the stonework of the Rectory wall, at the curve, about four feet from the gate post' (Stapleton 1911, 121), and evidently in the outer face since it might be inspected 'by every passer-by'. Fieldwork in 2007 revealed that the boundary wall of the former rectory had quite recently been totally rebuilt in new brick. The current owners of the rectory said they had seen no stones that might represent this item. An earlier field visit by Ordnance Survey archaeological staff in 1960 seems to have sought this stone in the wrong wall: they failed to find it and gave a grid reference that identifies their search location more probably as the graveyard wall of All Saints church (Nottinghamshire HER, monument no. M1160).

It was apparently first noted in the 'Local Notes and Queries' column in the Nottinghamshire Guardian for 20 June 1903 (Stapleton 1911, 121). All Saints church nearby underwent restoration in 1843 and 1878 (Godfrey 1907, 113; Cox 1912a, 72), which might have released this stone from the church fabric for reuse in the rectory wall. The rectory itself was recently rebuilt 'on a scale of no ordinary magnitude and accommodation' in 1843 (Curtis 1843–4, 74).

Unknown

The stone was described as 'a small section of an early churchyard cross ... covered with a variety of the peculiar and beautiful interlaced pattern that ceased to be used in Norman times ... No doubt further sculptured work exists on the sides now hidden from view' (Stapleton 1911, 121). A further clue to its appearance was provided by Godfrey, when he compared the stones at East Bridgford (East Bridgford 1a–b, p. 106, Ills. 20–4) with 'a fragment we have recently detected built into the boundary wall of Cotgrave Rectory' (Godfrey 1907, 163). Du Boulay Hill's unpublished notes for his 1932 book on East Bridgford also list Cotgrave as 'the same type of shaft' as those at East Bridgford, Hawksworth, Rolleston, Screveton, Shelford (sic) and two at Shelton (Nottinghamshire Archives Office, PR6571, p. 119).

Appendix C item (lost stones for which no illustration has survived).

While the first four comparanda for the Cotgrave stone in Hill's list are mid-Kesteven covers (pp. 53–61 and Fig. 8), and the two at Shelton related monuments, Hill's inclusion of Shelford 1 rather undermines the clarity of the comparison he offers. However, Godfrey was a skillful antiquarian and it is likely that his specific association of the stone at Cotgrave with the two at East Bridgford can be relied upon. It is quite likely, therefore that the stone at Cotgrave Rectory was another product of the Ancaster quarries, perhaps belonging to the large mid-Kesteven shaft group (Everson and Stocker 1999, 33–5; see here p. 50) or even that it was a fragment of a mid-Kesteven grave-cover, like the East Bridgford pieces, since the remains of that monument type were then routinely believed to be parts of cross-shafts (ibid., 44). It presumably came to the rectory wall from the church itself. Recent excavations at All Saints church did not reveal any further sculpted stones, but evidently did uncover the outline of an early nave, marked by foundations of water-worn stones, that was clearly of pre twelfth-century date and was probably of the late pre-Conquest period (Elliott and Gilbert 1999, figs. 5 and 6).

Late tenth or early eleventh century?

Godfrey 1907, 162–3; Stapleton 1911, 121; Stapleton 1912, 9

[1] The following is an unpublished manuscript reference to Cotgrave 1: Nottinghamshire Archives Office, PR6571, p. 119.