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Chapters for this volume, along with copies of original in-text images, are available here.
Object type: Lower part of cross-shaft
Measurements: H. 60 cm (23.6 in); W. 41.5 > 39.5 cm (16.4 > 15.6 in); D. 34.5 > 32 cm (13.6 > 12.6 in)
Stone type: Fine-grained, dolomitic, white (10YR 8/2) limestone; Lower Magnesian Limestone, Middle Permian; probably reused Roman ashlar from York, originally from Tadcaster area (see Fig. 5)
Plate numbers in printed volume: Fig. 7i; 868-871
Corpus volume reference: Vol 3 p. 220-221
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The shaft is edged by a bold cable moulding.
A (broad): A single panel contains a large, frontally posed Virgin and Child, her head lost. The Virgin's feet rest upon a horizontal rectangular cushion and protrude from a voluminous skirt which is roughly carved in twelve vertical folds within a broad edging. Her right arm has a contoured outline and is filled with diagonal strips; to the left of the arm are two rough fillers. She wears a collar or necklace of five pear-shaped elements. Her figure is flanked by broad vertical elements, perhaps part of her chair, in heavy cable spiralling downwards and inwards, each with a narrower plain outer edging.
The Christ-child almost slips from her grasp: He is seated across her lap, His left leg caught up by the Virgin's right hand whilst her left holds His back. The Child's legs are plain and thin, and the feet very long. His thighs and body are covered with pellets, and His shoulders with vertical strips. His profile face has a high, pointed nose and a large eye consisting of an oval pellet surrounded by a ring. His arms are raised and fingers extended, the wrists being encircled by a narrow band.
There are faint remains of gesso on the Virgin's skirt. The carving is deeply incised and not accomplished.
B (narrow): A fettered bird-chain ascends the panel. The fetter is median-incised with occasional asymmetrical loops. One bird is complete, only the tail of another surviving. The beak is hooked and the eye is a raised pellet with surrounding ring. The neck and body are decoratively zoned with pellet and strip ornament. The wing sweeps up to a point, and, like the neck, is heavily bound by the fetters. The tails fall in cascades of parallel strips and are not connected with the bird but form terminations to the fetter bands.
C (broad): A loose plant-scroll in flat relief fills the panel. It is basically an open simple scroll but with tangled or exploded offshoots filling the available space. The stem is median-incised and its bifurcation is held by a panelled node with a double contoured edge. The leaves are large and curling, with pronounced volute tips and enclosed pellet infills. Where a stem or passing offshoot meets the edge of the leaf there is a bold semicircular nick. Some loose tendrils with tight volutes hang at the side, and, within, two others terminate in rosette berry bunches. By the spandrel formed by the splitting stem are three fillers arranged as a triangle, two of them gouged. Two of the leaves lack pellet infill.
D (narrow): Much of the top of the stone is broken away. The single panel contains remains of two animals from a beast-chain (Fig. 7i). The lower, better preserved beast is in profile with its head thrown back towards its rump. The edges of its body are parallel, though the neck is slightly slimmer. A fetter passes down the axis of the panel crossing the beast's neck and waist, and slipping under the extension of the ear, to divide the body into zones each with its distinct infilling ornament. The head and neck are pelleted, the chest has contouring strips, and the rear quarters strips of cable. The jaws gape and the snout has a triple fold in front of a pellet eye with an encircling ring. The joint of the fore leg is enclosed by two concentric arcs which link with the outer contoured strips, and the fettered leg has a rounded three-toed foot. The waist fetter is median-incised and forms a loose knot below the beast.
The lower part of the upper beast survives: an elongated hip with double outline, an extended tail which emerges from a semicircular, contoured dent and forms part of the fettering, and a zoned body with strips and pellets as infill. The hind foot is rounded and three-toed, and an unconnected foot with four toes fills the space by the lower beast's throat.
This is a very eclectic monument. The Virgin and Child closely resemble the examples at Shelford, Nottinghamshire (Kendrick 1949, pl. II), and near by at Nunburnholme 1 (Ill. 723); the beast-chain derives from the tradition exemplified at Folkton 1 (Ill. 442; Fig. 7f); the bird-chain is a degenerate form of that on York Minster 2B (Ill. 11; Fig. 6g); and the plant-scroll's closest analogues are in Wiltshire, for example, on the door jambs at Britford (Clapham 1930, pl. 10; Cramp 1972, pl. 66, fig. 1, nos. 7–8). The ecclesiastical iconography of the shaft's principal face contrasts with the secular scenes and portraits of most Anglo-Scandinavian figure carving in Yorkshire, and may represent a shift back to church patronage of sculpture after the English take-over of York in the middle of the tenth century, a trend observable in carvings like the Newburgh Priory panel, North Riding (Pevsner 1966, pl. 9a). In the first half of the eleventh century, successive archbishops of York were active in building and adorning churches at their centres of York, Beverley, and Southwell, Nottinghamshire, which might explain both the iconography and the connection with Nottinghamshire.
The plant-scroll has no local parallels, the south-western links possibly being a reflection of the origins of the York archbishops who held Worcester in plurality with the northern province.
The bird- and beast-chains undoubtedly draw upon the Anglo-Scandinavian animal ornament of the sculpture of York and the North and East Ridings (Lang 1978b, 147 ff.), but the disintegration of the birds and the detached foot on face D indicate a later development and some debasement. Whilst the nose-folds of the beast and the tails of the birds have resemblances to the York material, the decorative zoning of the bodies is another North Midlands manifestation, for example, at Bakewell, Derbyshire, and indeed the disposition of the tail on the birds also has its origins in late Anglian motifs in Mercia (Lang 1978b, 147, fig. 8.1A–B).
