Church porch, inside

First recorded, in present position, in lecture delivered in 1893 (Calverley 1895, 123)

St Peter

Badly damaged but not worn. There is a deep socket in the south face and extensive damage on all faces

The faces are edged by fine outer and broad inner roll mouldings.

A (broad): The entire face is covered by a fine medallion scroll of which four volutes survive: (i) The stems which form the volute divide after the crossing at the base and terminate in two counterpointed berry bunches, one rounded, one oval. A stemmed leaf or bud crosses over the oval berry bunch and partly obliterates the rounded bunch above. (ii) A quadruped straddles the volute and is depicted with its back-turned head in front of one strand and its haunches behind the other. Another strand passes between its legs and its feet rest on the medallion below. It is in the act of biting a berry bunch and a long triangular leaf fills the space above its muzzle. It has a canine head, pointed ears, and a long curling tail. The space between the volutes (i) and (ii) is filled by a long triangular leaf which hangs on a fine tendril-like stem. Loose berries or pellets fill the space around the animal's body. (iii) A medallion with counterpointed berry bunches as (i) and a pair of back legs locked together. There is a berry bunch hanging over its back. It has a canine type of head and a long tail.

B (narrow): Only about 43 cm of the carved face of this side survives. At the base is a tendrilled scroll from which sprout a round berry bunch with drop leaf and a spiral tendril with leaf sprouting upwards, another spiral, and then a pelta spiral as on D.

C (broad): This face is almost worn away and there is a square secondary socket at the top. Below are the remains of three volutes of a tightly wound, spiral scroll filled with large oval berry bunches.

D (narrow): The lower portion of the face is cut away but the upper portion retains part of a fine-stranded plant trail with split stems. The two upper curves are filled with curling side tendrils which form themselves into pelta shapes with a central bend, and leaves upright and pendent form the crisp coils. Below, a long triangular berry bunch hangs from a tightly coiled tendril and below that the central tendril coils round a berry bunch.

In layout and details of the scroll organization and motifs this shaft is closely linked with the Lowther carvings – the style of cutting very fine strands at a sharp angle is closely paralleled on Lowther 1. Moreover, the layout in which one broad face carries a medallion scroll, the other a spiral scroll, while the narrow faces carry a distinctive plant trail with split stems and side tendrils that coil tightly into spiral and pelta formations, is so close as to postulate a single workshop (Bailey 1974a, I, 35–6). Although the split stem is commonplace in Roman art and occurs on both sides of the Pennines (Introduction, p. 16), the fine curling tendrils with their mannered pelta shapes formed by the leaves and buds are so like faces B and D on Lowther 1 that a close identity must be assumed for the carving tradition. The form of the scrolls on both Lowther 1 and 2 is discussed elsewhere (pp. 128–9). It is interesting that the motifs of both of the Lowther crosses seem to be combined on face A at Heversham. Here the animals, as on Lowther 2, are thoroughly indigenous. The little crouching quadruped at the base of face A here is squashed rather uneasily into his enclosing volute, although his hindquarters spread over the plant strands on the right. The quadruped with turned-back head above straddles two volutes below. In sculpture, such dog-like creatures occur in an earlier form at Easby and Otley, Yorkshire and later appear in pairs, as for example, on Nunnykirk, Northumberland (Cramp 1984, pl. 207, 1192). Indeed, the affronted posture of the upper beast here might imply that it had been taken from a paired model, although two quadrupeds are found singly on Lowther 2. Other scroll details, such as the counterpointed berry bunches within a single medallion, are widespread within a cultural zone of western Northumbria which embraces Northallerton, Yorkshire (Collingwood 1927a, fig. 116, 4), Lancaster and Kendal (Ills. 679–80, 382) and the tightly spiralled scrolls on face C also find close parallels at Lancaster (Collingwood 1927a, fig. 46). Heversham is recorded as a monastic site in the early tenth century (see n. 1); this cross reflects the importance of the site before that period.

Late eighth century

Calverley 1895, pl. 123; Calverley 1899a, 198–203, pl. 202; Brøndsted 1920, 178; Scott 1920, 117–18; Brøndsted 1924, 44–5, fig. 32; Collingwood 1926a, 31; Curwen 1930, 22–4, pl. 23; Collingwood 1932a, 40; R.C.H.M. 1936, lviii, lxv, 110, pl. 6; Brown 1937, 211, 282, pl. LXXI; Kendrick 1938, 153, 198, 202, pl. XCII(1); Cramp 1965b, 7; Edwards 1966, 148; Bailey 1974a, I, 20, 23–4, 35–6, 40, II, 153–5 pls.; Cramp 1974, 134; Bailey 1980, 51, 80; O'Sullivan 1980, 278, 304–5, 307; Cramp 1984, 15

1. The existence of a monastery here is implied by the arrangements made by Tilred '...abbas de Hefresham...' to be received at Norham in the early tenth century, as recorded in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto (Symeon 1882b, 208)