In crypt

Found in 1838, near east buttress of porch (Wall 1894, 90–1; Collingwood 1907, 359)

St Mary

Vertical arms broken away, and one lateral arm fractured in two places; face C worn away completely on larger piece; carving weathered

A (broad): The free-armed cross has arms of type D10 with an outer cable moulding and a slender roll moulding within it. At the centre is a flattened circular boss encircled at a little distance by a flat ring. On the surface of the cross a slender plant-scroll is disposed around the boss, its volutes within forming a miniature spiral scroll. At the sides the stems interlace where they pass through the narrowest parts of the arms before terminating in loose loops and two pairs of pendant triangular berry branches.

B and D (narrow): The edge moulding has an outer and an inner roll. On the arm-ends these frame four triangular motifs arranged in a saltire.

C (broad): Worn away except for the broken arm. This is filled with interlace in a slender modelled strand, ending in alternate-joined terminals. The form of the pattern is too worn to be deciphered. In the centre of the cross are the remains of a large rounded boss.

E (top): Plain, except for an outer cable and inner roll moulding.

F (bottom): As face E, except for the presence of a dowel hole fixing the head to the shaft, which is drilled in the centre of a rectangular dressed area indicating the section and size of the shaft.

The size of this cross-head is considerable and implies a complete standing monument of over twenty feet. In Yorkshire it would only have been matched by the columnar crosses at Masham, North Riding, and Dewsbury, West Riding, (Collingwood 1927, 7. fig. 13). The arm of the Masham cross (Collingwood 1907, 360, fig. a on 361) carries a stringy plant-scroll similar to that of the present carving, where the leaves are rudimentary.

The boss and ring are separated by a deep groove which may have held a metal appliqué. There is evidence for metal appendages on the other Lastingham cross-head (no. 4).

The lateral and upper limbs of the cross were fixed to the lost shaft by a spike, the dowel hole for which survives in the base of this fragment. Such a large monument was unlikely to have had a funerary function and may have stood within the monastic enclosure, much as Irish crosses did. The unweathered underside preserves the high quality of the cutting.

The four unpinned loops of face C have been compared by Adcock with Anglian work at Wensley, North Riding (Adcock 1974, I, 133).

Late eighth to early ninth century

Rowe 1874, 204–5, fig. 1; Frank 1888, 162; Wall 1894, 83–4, 90–1, fig. on 90; Wall 1906, 153–4, figs. 2–3; Collingwood 1907, 359, fig. g on 358; Collingwood 1912a, 125; Collingwood 1927, 110, fig. 133c, 114, 119; Adcock 1974, I, 133; Hewitt and Hewitt 1982, 10, fig.; Cramp 1984, I, 9, 16, 95, 212–13; Bailey and Cramp 1988, 126; Lang 1988b, 8; Lang 1989, 4; Mowforth [no date], 12, fig. A on 11

1. The following are general references to the Lastingham stones: Allen and Browne 1885, 352; Frank 1888, 40; Norman 1961, 267; Lang 1989, 1, 5.