In the north-east corner of the nave

Found reused (together with Norman and thirteenth-century carved stones) during reconstruction of Steventon Manor (SU 550472) in 1877 (letter, December 27 1893, from owner to Sumner Wilson in Allen papers at British Library) and built into porch; presented to church in 1952. Building materials for sixteenth-century manor presumably came from near-by parish church.

St Nicholas

Broken and worn

Part of a tapering shaft of square section, dressed roughly flat above and below.

A (broad): Extensively damaged, the lower left-hand corner of the face is lost, and the face is dressed flat to the left of a line between the upper left and lower right-hand corners. Above and to the right is a plain, low-relief, border with double mouldings. The face is divided into two fields, of which the upper is slightly the larger, by a narrow horizontal moulding of square section.

The decoration of the lower field has been entirely defaced, but in the upper field is a thick, ribbon-like animal body, forming a loop touching the upper and lateral borders, before the tapering ends of the body cross and develop into disorganised interlace. The principal feature of this interlace is a pair of pointed loops, one running into each of the upper corners, through which the body passes. The interlace strands are median-incised (Fig. 9b).

B (narrow): Face B has been trimmed back to the right, but to the left has a border with broad, low-relief, plain, double mouldings. The face is divided into two fields of which the upper is the larger, by a plain horizontal moulding of indeterminate section.

In the upper field a thick ribbon-like animal body forms a loop almost touching the lower border. The body tapers towards the upper ends, which cross and develop into disorganised interlace with median-incised strands. A prominent feature of this is a pair of pointed interlace loops, one running into each of the lower corners, through which the animal's body passes.

In the lower field is a pair of confronted interlocking ribbon-like animals whose bodies taper towards the head. The head of the first is placed in the upper left-hand corner of the field and faces outwards and downwards, its body curves across to touch the right-hand border before curving back to the left. The second animal is similarly posed, but faces in the opposite direction. It has a square snout, a slightly upward-curving upper jaw, a prominent bulging forehead, and a small pointed ear. Under its chin is a pellet. The head of the first animal is similar, but has a pecked eye, and no pellet. The bodies of both animals are contoured with an incised line and hatched. They are involved in disorganised, median-incised interlace issuing from the animals' mouths (Fig. 9a, c).

C (broad) and D (narrow): Destroyed.

This shaft, together with the piece from Winchester Upper Brook Street (Ill. 683), an impost or frieze from the Old Minster, Winchester (no. 64; Ill. 601), and the fragments from Little Somborne (Ill. 447), are clearly related to a group of sculptures which are widely distributed in south-western England, and first defined by Cottrill (Cottrill 1935). The Hampshire material constitutes the eastern outliers of this group. The repertoire of ornament, consisting of paired or single ribbon-like animals enmeshed in and/or developing into interlace, the use of spiral elements, and the appearance of plant ornament on some of the pieces, all point to a date in the late eighth or early ninth century. This dating is confirmed by the specific comparisons which can be drawn between the material in this group and the mid to late eighth-century Leningrad Gospels (Alexander 1978, no. 39, ills. 188–95). For further discussion of this group, see Chap. V.

Late eighth or ninth century

Doubleday and Page 1903, 238 - 9; Page 1911, 173; Cottrill 1931, 29, appendix; Cottrill 1935, 151; Kendrick 1938, 211, pl. XCVIII; Cox and Jowitt 1949, 163; Green and Green 1951, 44 - 5, pl. XIII; Rice 1952, 128; Fisher 1959, 80; Pevsner and Lloyd 1967, 17, 611; Cramp 1975, 187; Tweddle 1983b, 18 - 20, 29; Backhouse et al. 1984, 42; Wilson 1984, 146, ill. 182; Tweddle 1986b, i, 141 - 6, ii, 488 - 91, iii, fig. 14, pls. 102b - 103a