Volume 3: York and Eastern Yorkshire

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Current Display: Amotherby 02, Eastern Yorkshire Forward button Back button
Overview
Present Location
Cemented into east wall of porch, inside (one end enclosed by wooden partition)
Evidence for Discovery
First recorded in 1907 (Collingwood 1907, 299)
Church Dedication
St Helen
Present Condition
Lower part broken; upper arm and parts of lateral arms survive, the edges pitted and worn
Description

Only part of one broad face is visible.

A (broad): The cross-head, arm type D11, has arm-pits forming three-quarter circles, which are filled by recessed rudimentary billets. The cutting of the billets is rough and they are some way between billets and cylinders (G.I., fig. 3, 4–5). A well-modelled edge moulding is carried round the perimeter. In the centre is a worn, slightly domed boss, surrounded by a bevelled ring. Each arm carries this same motif, though only the one in the upper arm survives completely. Between the central and upper rings is a plain filler, and above the upper example are two addorsed motifs. Collingwood's drawing (1907, fig. b on 296) shows a filler with a volute above the left-hand ring but this is not now accessible.

B (narrow): Broken away. The sides of the upper arm carry incised lines forming the edge moulding.

C (broad) and D (narrow): Built in.

E (top): Worn and chipped.

Discussion

The infill of the arm-pits may relate either to the plate-head crosses at Brompton, North Riding, or to the rarer billet-heads at Kirklevington, North Riding, (Collingwood 1907, 300, fig. e on 301; idem, 351, figs. c–d on 350), and Kirkdale (Ill. 546). This piece seems to be a compromise between the free-arm and ring-head crosses. The boss and ring motif derives from rivet covers in metalwork, suggesting a wooden and metal prototype; it is found elsewhere in Ryedale on the large Anglian cross-head, Lastingham 3 (Ill. 587). This cross might be an Anglian survival from the Anglo-Scandinavian period.

Date
Ninth to tenth century
References

Collingwood 1907, 299, fig. b on 296; Collingwood 1912a, 123; Morris 1931, 48; Pevsner 1966, 60

Endnotes

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