Churchyard, south of church

First recorded in present position in 1816 (Lysons and Lysons 1816, cci-ccii)

St Bridget

Worn and lichen covered

The shaft, which is a round-shaft derivative (G.I., fig. 1g) is plain below swags and a heavy triple collar which is punch-outlined and marked with fine grooves in the upper and lower edges. The shape at the base is not truly round but is squarish with rounded angles. The socket is angular and the base is plain. Traces of a large rectangular tenon at the bottom of the shaft are visible in the socket.

A (west, broad): The whole of the surviving face is covered by a very worn inscription. Five lines are marked out by incised frames and there may have been some letters in the scalloped space at the base. The inscription is so deteriorated that it has been declared completely illegible but, although much is illegible, the following can be made out (Fig. 10):

H[I]N[–]LE[D–E]

IUDI[I–D.H]

*[–N]IET

*O[–..]E

[.]X[–]

B (south, narrow): Only a small portion of the lower part of this face survives. Part of a split-stemmed plant trail seems to be present, but the carving is so shallow and the lichen cover so dense that it is almost impossible to see anything.

C (east, broad): Part of a bush scroll with four small paired asymmetrical volutes. The strands are fine and the berry bunches are small. It is difficult to identify other details but there appears to be a pair of leaves and a berry bunch on the right and left below the uppermost volute.

D (north, narrow): Part of a tree scroll with three or four symmetrical volutes which contain small berry bunches. It is possible that the uppermost volutes sprout pelta-shaped side tendrils, and there are isolated pellets or berries in the scroll.

This cross is important in the later history of Cumbrian sculpture, since it seems to be the first of the round-shaft derivative type which becomes so popular in the Viking age, and its plant-scrolls relate to the indigenous western tradition (Bailey 1974a, I, 69, 149; Introduction, pp. 30f, 36). It is therefore a great pity that the details of its inscription and ornament are so worn. In form it is more oval than round at the base and it has been fitted into a rectangular socket (unlike no. 2 where the shaft fits snugly into its round socket). If it is an experimental piece reflecting fashions from further south and east, as has been suggested (Collingwood 1927a, 6–9, figs. 12–13), then its rather squat and heavy appearance may be explained.

The long inscription, occupying what on other Cumbrian shafts seems to be the 'public' face, is in the form of lettering not found anywhere else in Cumbria. Okasha finds the text illegible and chillingly notes that 'In 1816 Lysons and Lysons described the text as "in too decayed a state to afford any satisfactory conjecture as to its import". Nevertheless, since then five translations from three different languages have been suggested' (Okasha 1971, 52). She does not include any of the letter forms in her tables of non-runic scripts, but in the variety of the letter forms she records (Okasha 1964–8, 322–30) there appears to be some similarity with the inscriptions from Whitby (Peers and Radford 1943, pls. XXII–XXV) and Dewsbury (Collingwood 1927a, fig. 73), Yorkshire, and with the memorial stone from Falstone, Northumberland (Cramp 1984, 172–3, pl. 166, 889–91). The letters are seriffed and are apparently Insular majuscules with the words well spaced. Falstone and Dewsbury provide parallels for many of the letter forms but the distinctive 'A' is not found in those inscriptions whilst it does occur at Whitby. The form of 'D' used is most closely paralleled at Dewsbury and perhaps we should see again a link between Cumbria and western Deira here.

With such imperfect survival of Anglo-Saxon inscriptions it is difficult to make any valid comparisons and, despite the clarity of the letter forms in Tom Middlemass's new photographs, it is still impossible to decipher the text or to determine the language in which it is written, although some of the elements might indicate that Latin is the most likely.

The plant scrolls on this cross are distinctively Cumbrian in their fine line strands and side-linked scrolls, and one may here compare the Kirkoswald brooch, dated to before 855 (Ill. 678; Wilson 1964, 139–40). Such side-linked scrolls also occur at Jarrow (Cramp 1984, pl. 90, 474) and at York (Collingwood 1927a, fig. 146), in eighth- to ninth-century contexts. Tree and bush scrolls of a fine schematic type are known elsewhere in Northumbria at Falstone (Cramp 1984, pl. 165). It could be that there is not a very long gap in time between the production of this monument and the development of the leafless formalized scrolls which are characteristic of the spiral-scroll school in this area.

Second quarter of ninth century

Lysons and Lysons 1816, cci–ccii, fig. on cci; Jefferson 1842, 308; Haigh 1857, 149–50, fig. 192; Whellan 1860, 7; Maughan and Addison 1865; Stephens 1865, fig. 192; Knowles 1878, 96; Knowles 1880, 145; Stephens 1884–9, 23; Allen 1885, 342–4, 354; Allen 1889a, 321; Ferguson 1893a, 495; Allen 1892–5, 144–6; Calverley 1899a, 26–32, 297, pl. facing 26, figs. on 28 and 30; Collingwood 1901a, 264, fig., pl. facing 281; Stevens 1904, 48–9; Collingwood 1911a, 273; Collingwood 1915a, 130–1, fig. facing 130; Parker and Collingwood 1917, 107; Scott 1920, 53–4; Collingwood 1923a, 119; Collingwood 1923b, 6, pl. I (3); Collingwood 1923c, 262; Parker 1926, 118–20, fig. 3 on 119; Collingwood 1927a, 6, 147, fig. 12 (3); Clapham 1930, 134; Brown 1937, 271–2, pl. XCIX; Kendrick 1941b, 11, pl. VIa; Kendrick 1949, 70, pl. XLVII; Fair 1950, 94; Pevsner 1967, 65–6; Page 1969, 31; Okasha 1971, 52, pl. 8; Bailey 1974a, I, 20, 24, 47, 71, 149, II, 26–8; Bailey 1980, 206, fig. 51; O'Sullivan 1980, 274, 283–4, 288–9, 307–8; Bailey forthcoming a