Volume 2: Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire-North-of-the-Sands

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Current Display: Harrington, Cumberland Forward button Back button
Overview
Present Location
In church
Evidence for Discovery
Found on 2 October 1924 at Eller Bank, Harrington (NX 994255) at depth of ten feet during road widening (Collingwood 1925b, 369)
Church Dedication
St Mary
Present Condition
Worn on face C; otherwise good
Description

Upper arm of cross-head (probably type A9) with an offset on narrow faces above the arm-pits. Decoration on all four faces is bordered by a roll moulding.

A (broad): Spiral-scroll surrounds the upper element of a cruciform head-pattern, type 2 (see Fig. 7).

B (narrow): There are traces of relief ornament in a panel on the end of the offset. Below is a three-strand stopped-plait.

C (broad): Spiral-scroll with pellets interspersed.

D (narrow): Three-strand stopped-plait.

Discussion

Like all of the coastal examples of crosses carved by the spiral-scroll school this head is free-armed. The projection at the junction of block and arm-pit is crudely paralleled in slab form at Drummore across the Solway in Wigtownshire (Collingwood 1927a, fig. 18). This feature should probably be seen as one facet of a general taste for excrescenses on the cross-head which are found in Viking-age carvings around the Irish Sea (see, inter alia, Nash-Williams 1950, no. 185; Langdon 1896, 155–6, figs. 397, 399; Bu'lock 1958, 6; Lionard 1961, fig. 20; Henry 1967, pls. 74, 84, 87, 104, 109, 110).

Date
Tenth to eleventh century
References
Collingwood 1925b, pls. and figs.; Collingwood 1925c, figs.; Collingwood 1927a, 96, 147, fig. 166; Fair 1950, 96; Pevsner 1967; Bailey 1974a, I, 47–80, II, 151–2, pls.
Endnotes

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