Reused in the exterior fabric of the east wall of the south porch. It is approximately 2 m from the south-east corner of the wall and 1.1 m above the plinth.

The south porch at Kneeton is a structure of wholly nineteenth-century date, belonging to the restoration of 1879–90, undertaken under the direction of Ewan Christian (Godfrey 1907, 282; Pevsner and Williamson 1979, 159). But the original stone had evidently already been broken up by that date. The medieval south aisle was demolished during this restoration work and it may be that the reused stones evident in the restored fabric came originally from the material thus released.

St Helen [1]

The one visible original surface is greatly weathered, and the central part of the field has suffered from mechanical damage. The stone has been roughly broken on three sides, whilst the original arris on the fourth side is also quite badly broken.

Certainty about what this stone represents is not possible. It is clearly a fragment from a much larger decorated stone, possibly a grave-cover, which originally had a raised moulding along one edge, defining the decoration. This moulding might have been of sub-circular section. Within the angle moulding the surface was evidently decorated with sculpture in low relief, of which only slight fragments survive. The decoration consisted of raised fillets of rectangular section, set at an angle to the border moulding. They are very straight for interlace components, and they are not linked inside the border moulding.

Appendix A item (stones dating from Saxo-Norman overlap period or of uncertain date)

We have been unable to make a clear case for the type of monument represented by this fragment of sculpture. The stone is obviously from a medieval monument, whilst the stone type might suggest that it is of early date. It might have come from one angle of a shaft or a cover. The pronounced diagonal fillets might possibly represent the decoration on the side of a shaft, such as that at Harmston 1 (Lincolnshire), where, however, the diagonal fillets form a zig-zag (Everson and Stocker 1999, 176–7, ills. 196, 198), which does not appear to be the case here. Chevrons, however, were used to decorate the cross itself on the late tenth- or early eleventh-century grave-marker at Glentworth 1 in the same county (ibid., 169, ill. 179).

Uncertain, perhaps eleventh or twelfth century?

Unpublished

[1] The church was evidently dedicated to St Peter or St Peter and St Paul from the medieval period up until the eighteenth century (Godfrey 1907, 281).