Built into the fabric of the nave south wall, outside, just to the east of the south door in the first course above the plinth.

The stone was first noted by Lawrence Butler during the 1950s (Butler 1963–4, 113). The south wall of the nave belongs to an earlier fabric than that represented by the remainder of the building, which is largely of mechanically cut Blue-Lias stone and dates from the major restoration of 1879, when the church was 'almost rebuilt' under the direction of Ewan Christian ((—) 1879–80, lxviii; Pevsner and Williamson 1979, 132). Unlike the remainder of the fabric, the nave south wall also contains a mixture of stone types, including a number of reused limestones. Although it was said to have been 'left intact' during the 1879 work ((—) 1879–80, lxxviii), the original date of the wall is hard to estimate. It is perhaps most likely that it represents an early postmedieval reconstruction of a medieval building, rather than genuine medieval fabric. Prior to 1879, the church was said to be of Early English and Perpendicular style (Wake 1867, 47), whilst Throsby (1790a, 377) says that in his time the church was thatched. It is not impossible that the Girton monument was reset in its present position during the thirteenth century, but it would take a greater depth of study to establish that, and the stone itself demonstrates that it had been reused in an intermediate location between its service as a grave-cover and its incorporation in the wall.

St Cecilia

Moderate. The carved surfaces survive moderately well, though somewhat weathered. At the current upper end two precise, square rebates indicate that the stone has been re-cut for reuse in a location prior to its present one. The lower right-hand corner of the decorated surface has been broken away through mechanical damage.

This block represents about one quarter of a grave-cover of mid-Kesteven type and is taken from the central part of the monument (Fig. 17).

A (top): The single visible face is decorated with a cross surrounded by interlace in low relief. The 'lid' panel represented is defined by borders with well-defined cable mouldings, of which that to the right (east) is only just visible protruding from behind the masonry of the south porch east wall. The interlace itself, which fills all four interstices of the cross, is of simple three-strand plait and is decorated with an incised medial line in three runs and double line in the fourth (the plait to upper left as the stone is viewed today). All four runs of plait develop from the terminals of the cross-head in a manner typical of the monument type and the medial lines are continuous across the terminal of the cross.

Excluding the related monument at Derby Museum, the mid-Kesteven grave-cover clearly represented at Girton is one of sixteen examples within the group which retain some part of one of the double-ended crosses, surrounded by runs of plait, that adorn all of the lids in the group for which original evidence survives (Everson and Stocker 1999, 42, fig. 9; this volume, Fig. 8, pp. 54–9). On only those at Coleby Hall, Colsterworth and East Bridgford within this large group does the plait-work not emanate from the terminals of the cross-head, placing Girton amongst the majority. Despite the apparent later poverty of the church, it was evidently an independent parish, mentioned in Domesday (Morris 1977, 6,4), and there is no reason to think that the monument has been brought here from another parish at a later date. Rubble from the chapel at Meering, the next parochial area to the south, is said to have been taken across the Trent, for example, rather than brought here (Wake 1867, 47), and we presume that the presence of Girton 1 built into the fabric of the surviving church indicates the presence of a burial ground here since the late tenth or early eleventh century.

Late tenth or early eleventh century

Butler 1963–4, 113; Everson and Stocker 1999, 36, 41, 44, 96, 199, fig. 9; Stocker and Everson 2001, 235, fig. 12.6; Knight and Howard 2004, 170