These stones were said to have been stored in a cellar on the site of Newark Castle after the 1993–4 excavations that caused their discovery (inf. Professor Philip Dixon). But our enquiries in January 2013 established that the undercroft has latterly been kept clear for events and the Romanesque stone items formerly stored there are displayed in the Gilstrap Centre, Newark. The displayed items do not include these grave-markers. The alternative suggestion has emerged that (contra Dixon's guidance) the stones were in fact re-buried on completion of the castle excavations in the late 1990s (inf. Mr René Mouraille, manager of Newark Castle and a member of the 1990s excavation team). The stones were apparently not accessioned into the Newark Museum store, now part of the 'Resource Centre' of Newark and Sherwood Museum, and cannot be traced there (inf. Mr Glyn Hughes). Effectively, therefore, the stones are lost.

Six of the burials in the pre-castle cemetery in Area 3 of excavations on the site of Newark Castle in 1993–4 were reportedly 'marked with roughly shaped rectangles of stone stood on end' (Marshall and Samuels 1997, 8).

Unknown

An earlier account of the excavation results gives the context of some of the stones, describing how 'Several of the burials were in stone slab cists and others had cists around the skull ... At least 4 stone slabs set vertically ... were probably grave markers'; stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating agreed in suggesting a date of mid tenth to mid eleventh century (Marshall and Samuels 1994, 53–4). A contemporary interim report adds a little detail, indicating the presence of markings that were taken by contemporary observers as decoration. 'At least 6 stone slabs set vertically were probably grave markers and it was noted that some had unusual hollows in groups of three scooped out of their surfaces. Dr Chris Brooke has suggested that this may be a crude representation of the Holy Trinity' (Coupland, Marshall and Samuels 1994, 15–16).

What seems to be one of these stones in situ during the excavations is seen in the background of one of the published site photographs (Marshall and Samuels 1997, fig. 9: see Ill. 200).

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

More than fifty inhumation burials, mixed male, female and children, and all oriented east–west and lacking grave goods, were recovered in the excavations in the 1990s. Some were partial cist burials; some had 'head muffs' etc. They may have formed part of a much larger burial ground that extended to a further hundred burials disturbed nearby in the 1830s. The part of the cemetery within which these burials lay was dated by radio-carbon samples to the period c.950 to c.1070. In addition the cemetery was superseded by the castle's first defining ditch and overlain by its first defensive bank (Marshall and Samuels 1997, 8, 10). This evidence seems to demonstrate that these stones were the remains of late pre-Conquest grave-markers.

It is still a considerable rarity to encounter pre-Conquest funerary equipment in situ (compare Lincoln St Mark 18 — Gilmour and Stocker 1986, fig. 16; Everson and Stocker 1999, 209–10, ill. 263). Here, survival evidently resulted from the protection afforded by the superimposed clay defensive bank of c.1070. Of particular interest is the proportion of stone markers in this small burial population, and (perhaps) the lack of grouping or patterning in their distribution. All nevertheless marked adult graves. Were these surviving items the complete stones marking the burial? Or the stubs of more substantial markers? If the former, then they were perhaps decorated, though evidently less formally finished sculptures than the Anglo-Saxon Corpus has customarily dealt with. Such crude stone markers of graves are certainly reported and observable in early graveyards in the west and north of Britain (e.g. Cramp and Douglas-Home 1977–8). If the latter — as we are inclined to presume was the case, contra the understanding of the excavators — then it is of interest that the markers were not removed intact from the site in preparation for the castle works, or pushed over or left standing, but presumably smashed off level with the ground, perhaps as useful hardcore. In well-preserved examples of such rectangular grave-markers, between one third and one half of the stone may represent the below-ground anchor of the monument, and be only roughly finished, to support the finished and decorated upper part, which is here lost.

Several distinctive styles of rectangular marker were being produced by the Lincolnshire quarries in the last century or so before the Conquest (Everson and Stocker 1999, 58–62). But in addition to these groupings, the large collection of funerary items from the excavations at St Mark's in Lincoln indicates that some quite simple and less finished markers were current (Stocker 1986). 'Continuing tradition' items, which are typically in local petrologies, may also point to there having been earlier, simple forms of local and very modest monuments that are difficult to identify except in an excavated context (Everson and Stocker 1999, 61–2).

The reported groups of simple hollows interpreted as decoration are difficult to interpret at second hand. From the reference to the Trinity, they evidently occurred in triplets. Since it was experienced archaeologists who observed them and gave an opinion on their significance, it is perhaps unlikely that they were cressets, though as described they sound similar. Reuse of cresset stones in funerary contexts is certainly found in western Britain and Ireland, as at Killadeas, Co. Fermanagh (Lowry-Corry 1935, 24, pl. 4c), and there may be a ritual or emblematic significance in that.

Later tenth or eleventh century

Coupland, Marshall and Samuels 1994, 15–16; Marshall and Samuels 1994, 53–4: Marshall and Samuels 1997, 7–8, fig. 9