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Object type: Cross-shaft and part of -head [1]
Measurements: H. 159 cm (62.5 in); W. (shaft): 40.5 > 32.5 cm (16 > 12.75 in) (head): 53.6 cm (21 in); D. Built in
Stone type: Medium- to coarse-grained (with grains of low sphericity), slightly micaceous sandstone, upper part very pale brown (10YR 8/3), foot reddish-yellow to strong brown (7.5YR 6/6-5/6); deltaic channel sandstone, Saltwick Formation, Aalenian, Middle Jurassic; perhaps from near Whitby (see Fig. 5)
Plate numbers in printed volume: 546
Corpus volume reference: Vol 3 p. 158-159
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Only one face is visible. To judge from the comparatively complete lateral arm, its type was A11. The arm-pits may contain billets.
A (broad): The perimeter has a broad plain edge moulding. The principal face and cross-head is occupied by a Crucifixion. Christ's head is disfigured in the upper arm but a dished halo is discernible as well as a forked beard. His hands extend into the lateral arms passing over a vertical bar beneath the palms. There is a small pellet by the thumb and another in the corner. Below his left hand is a meandering filler. Christ wears a short tunic with two incised circles on its front. He is bound by a bold transverse bar with a contoured outline. At one end the bar is accompanied by pellet fillers. Within the right-hand moulding is a tapering band with a point below the arm-pit and a circular terminal. On the left-hand side is a possible broken spear point. Below the bar is the skirt of the kirtle and Christ's legs, straight and together with the feet splayed. Beneath the feet are two addorsed S-shaped serpents, very worn. A broad transverse moulding terminates the panel and some inches below it is a roughly incised horizontal line.
B–D: Built in.
In Anglo-Scandinavian Crucifixions the figure of Christ invariably occupies the cross-head, his hands extended into the arms of the monument, unlike earlier Anglian Crucifixions which are usually low on the shaft. The position is identical with Irish crosses and it is likely that the tradition arrived in tenth-century Yorkshire with Norse colonials from the Irish Sea province (see Coatsworth 1979, I, 246–9). Unlike the Crucifixes at Ellerburn (no. 8; Ill. 437) and Sinnington (no. 11; Ill. 814), the body of Christ extends down the shaft and thereby more closely resembles the roods at Sherburn (no. 8; Ill. 785), and Kirkheaton, West Riding, both in the Anglian tradition. The forked beard and the convention of a bound Christ are, however, Scandinavian (Fuglesang 1981). The monument's eclecticism extends to the treading of the serpents, which were once clearer than at present (Frank 1888, 143).
