Volume 4: South-East England

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Current Display: West Mersea 01, Essex Forward button Back button
Overview
Present Location
Built into south aisle wall, inside, immediately west of south door
Evidence for Discovery
Found in 1970 built into south aisle wall, outside
Church Dedication
Sts Peter and Paul
Present Condition
Broken on all edges; face heavily weathered
Description

Only one face is visible.

A (broad): A wide, flat, plain moulding towards the right-hand side divides the stone into two fields (vertically as now set). Each is filled with interlace formed from narrow, rounded strands. That in the left-hand panel is probably a form of pattern A; the pattern to the right is too fragmentary to be identified.

Discussion
The disposition of the decoration, with interlace flanking a plain moulding, is reminiscent of that of late Anglo-Saxon grave-covers, such as those at Cardington (Ill. 264) and Milton Bryan (Ill. 361) in Bedfordshire. In those cases the plain moulding is the stem of a cross with interlace flanking it. Here, however, the interlace is very much finer, suggesting an earlier date for the piece, although interlaces with very fine strands may have persisted in the south-east as late as the early tenth century: compare Barking 1, Essex (Ills. 256–9).
Date
Tenth to eleventh century
References
( --- ) 1971; Rodwell and Rodwell 1977, 114
D.T.
Endnotes

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