Built into the east face of the first arcade pier from the west in the north nave arcade, where it has been used as walling ashlar. The stone is in the sixth course above the plinth.

This stone at Norwell appears not to have been previously recognized as the remains of an Anglo-Saxon monument. It has evidently been reused on at least one occasion prior to incorporation into the pier in which it is now found. In profile, the remains of a substantial rebate can be seen cut into the surviving rear face (C) of the stone. Therefore the stone was apparently first reused as a lintel, with the rebate serving as the keep for a door leaf. This first phase of reuse is now undatable, but its secondary reuse presumably occurred when the north arcade was constructed. This architectural feature is dated by Pevsner and Williamson to the fourteenth century (1979, 214), although this particular pier is oddly placed within the arcade, being aligned more north east/ south west than its fellows. It also contains a mixture of fabrics. It is not inconceivable that this pier has been rebuilt, reusing some of its original architectural details but also other extraneous stones, at a later date.

St Lawrence

The stone itself has been cut down at both ends and has been chamfered at either end to fit the plan of the pier in which it now sits. (This pier itself is not so much an octagon as a square with chamfered corners.) Although this is not currently demonstrable, it seems highly likely that the original shaft section was halved longitudinally for reuse and that this stone represents only one half of the original section. This would suggest that face C relates to the stone's first reuse as a lintel. It is not clear whether face B survives, though it is possible that original decoration on face D (currently built-in) awaits discovery. Faces E and F are likely to relate to the stone's second reuse within the arcade pier, whereas the decoration on face A has only survived as a pattern of deeply incised holes, since the face has been trimmed back by several millimetres.

The Norwell stone represents part of the shaft of a large standing cross, originally decorated with interlace in low relief, though this evidence is currently only visible on face A.

A (narrow): The surface retains unmistakable evidence for a pattern of continuous interlace, originally set between panel borders of simple square section. Only the remains of one such border is now visible. A total of twelve holes are visible and their shape probably indicates a broad plaitwork. If the whole width of the stone is represented here, then it might have been a four-strand plait. The uppermost and lowermost eleven centimetres of the decorated faces were lost when bold chamfers were cut to fit the profile of the pier in which it is reused.

B (broad): Built in. It is not possible to tell whether this represents an original face of the shaft or whether, more probably, the original face was cut away when the stone was reused.

C (narrow): Built in. The dimensions of the stone make it most unlikely that today's face C represents an original face of the shaft. More likely the original shaft was near square in section (i.e. the section was approximately 32 x 44 cm (12.6 x 17.3 in) and that it was halved longitudinally for reuse.

D (broad): Built in. From the location of the remains of the border panel on face A, this face must lie close to the original surface of the shaft, though nothing is visible of any surviving decoration.

E and F (ends): Radically re-cut when the shaft section was incorporated within the arcade pier.

The shaft represented by the newly discovered Norwell stone was evidently quite a substantial monument. If, as we suspect, the shaft was halved for reuse — like that, for example, at Minting in Lincolnshire (Everson and Stocker 1999, 327–8) — its section of approximately 32 cm by 44 cm would make it comparable in size to examples such as Brattleby 1, Lincolnshire (ibid., 113–15, ills. 60–4, 66–7). We have argued that Brattleby 1 is a churchyard cross, still in situ, rather than a memorial to a particular individual and it might pre-date the construction of the church in stone (ibid., 33). That cross-shaft is also carved in stone from the Ancaster quarry zone, as is that at Norwell, and this again tends to link the two monuments. Brattleby is only one of quite a large group of Ancaster shfts, with perhaps as many as 17 members, including the Nottinghamshire example at Colston Bassett (p. 101, Ills. 9–13), and the distribution of these monuments would easily encompass Norwell, which is not as far from the quarry source as Brattleby (ibid., 33–4, fig. 8; this volume, pp. 50–1, Table 2 and Fig. 6).

So little is known of Norwell's decoration that it is hard to relate it stylistically to the remainder of the Ancaster shaft group. However, whether the surviving pattern of holes indicates a simple four-strand plait, or whether they represent a layout of many more strands that has been truncated during the stone's reuse, both forms are well represented within the Ancaster shaft group, and both are deployed on the Brattleby shaft.

Later tenth or early eleventh century

Unpublished