South side of church, near porch, outside

First recorded in 1874 on top of churchyard wall near entrance to churchyard (Calverley 1888d, 464)

St John

Heavily worn on roof and walls

Hogback, type f, with markedly bombé plan. Beneath the curved plain ridge moulding the steeply pitched roof is decorated on both sides with multiple ring-chain. This is flanked at the gable-end by a panel which also appears to have carried relief ornament. Two small end-beast heads, both seemingly inward facing, are set some 4.5 cm (2 in) along the ridge line from the gable-end. There is no decoration visible below the curved overhanging ridge on face A. The near perpendicular gable-ends, B and D, are undecorated and triangular in section. On face C there is a central wall panel formed by double vertical mouldings which frame a worn human figure. Below this are traces of the upper parts of a coiling serpent.

The surviving serpentine coils suggest that this stone was once much taller than now appears; its original proportions were thus probably closer to the usual slender profile of Cumbrian hogbacks. In its use of multiple ring-chain for the roof it employs a local development of a Borre-style motif (also seen on Gosforth 1 and 3 and Dearham 1) whilst the curling serpent underlying the decoration on face C provides another example of a local motif to set alongside the occurrences on Lowther 4 and 5 and Penrith 7. The small snake-like end-beast whose body is replaced by the arris moulding, resembles those at Sockburn, co. Durham and Easington, Yorkshire (Schmidt 1970, fig. 7; Collingwood 1907a, 317) but its position, set some way from the gable and in association with a narrow lateral roof panel, is best paralleled on Gosforth 5. Though there is a north-western taste for figural ornament on the walls of hogbacks the panelled presentation on face C is unique among English monuments; the closest parallel comes from Inchcolm in Fife (Lang 1972–4, 209–11).

Tenth century

Calverley 1883c, 375; Calverley 1888d, 462–4, fig. I facing 461; Calverley 1891a, 126; Parker 1896, 85; Calverley 1899a, 103–4, fig. facing 103; Calverley 1899b, 245; Collingwood 1901a, 271, fig. facing 271; Kermode 1907, fig. 29; Collingwood 1907b, 154; Marsh 1913, 259–60, fig. facing 260; Parker and Collingwood 1917, 105; Scott 1920, 87; Collingwood 1923c, 246; Collingwood 1927a, 148, 157; Fair 1950, 97; Shetelig 1954b, 128, 131; Pevsner 1967, 17, 114; Schmidt 1970, 15, figs. 2 and 11; Lang 1971, 158; Schmidt 1973, 71–3, 74, fig. 30a; Bailey 1974a, I, 294–5, II, 89–90, pls.; Lang 1972–4, 209, 213, 214; Smyth 1979, 278; Bailey 1980, 91, 98, 99; Cramp 1984, 143; Lang 1984, 88, 91, 93, 99, 106, 108, 110, 128–9, pls. on 129; Wilson 1984, 143; Bailey forthcoming a