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Object type: Part of cross-shaft
Measurements: H. 83.5 cm (33 in); W. 39 > 36 cm (15.25 > 14.25 in); D. 16 cm (6.25 in)
Stone type: Coarse-grained yellow sandstone (Carboniferous)
Plate numbers in printed volume: 256 - 8, 264
Corpus volume reference: Vol 2 p. 95
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Slab-like shaft. Single incomplete panels occupy all four faces of the shaft, bordered laterally by a flat-band moulding.
A (broad): Spiral-scroll with pellets. The scroll takes on T-pattern forms on the left border and encloses two swastika-like shapes in the lower part of the design. Near the top, surrounded by scroll, is a rider holding the reins of a horse which has a drooping bird-like head. Immediately below is a bird, seen in profile, perching on a branch and facing a man.
B (narrow): Three-strand plain stopped-plait.
C (broad): Three parallel strips of vertical ornament. Down the centre is a single-branch spiral-scroll and on either side of this is a simple twist, enclosing (and to the left itself twice flanked by) pellets.
D (narrow): Three-strand plain plait.
Spiral-scroll school (Introduction, pp. 33–8). This shaft is closely linked to Aspatria 2 where there is a similar use of three vertical strips of identical ornament and (otherwise unique in the school) anthropomorphic decoration. The significance of the figural ornament, if any such existed, is now irrecoverable. The bird and man may, however, merely represent meaningless adaptations of the human and avian inhabitants of pre-Viking scrolls (see Urswick 1 and Jarrow, co. Durham, nos. 19–20 (Cramp 1984, pl. 98, 525)). The horseman is unlikely, however, to derive from a similar Northumbrian source. Riders are not a theme which figures in pre-Viking sculpture in this area though they do occur before the tenth century among stone carvings in Mercia, Ireland and Scotland. The use of this motif at Dearham presumably derives from one of these regions or from Viking-period work across the Pennines (Cramp 1984, pls. 20, 102; 61, 290; 79, 394; 139, 745).
