Built externally into the west wall of the vestry which is on the north side of the chancel

Uncertain: found built into either south wall of nave, remodelled in 1863 when south aisle added (Page 1911), or west wall of tower, dating from 1907 (church guide)

St Michael

Weathered

The cover tapers towards the lower end.

A (top): The lower border does not survive; that to the left has a narrow, plain, low-relief moulding, and those above and to the right have plain, low-relief, double mouldings. A similar double moulding divides the face into two fields, the lower of which is the larger. The upper field is undecorated but heavily chiselled. The lower field is decorated with a Latin cross, the head and horizontal arms of which are expanding and concave sided, with curved re-entrant angles. Their square ends terminate on the border. Each arm is separated by a pair of narrow transverse cabled mouldings from the point of junction which is decorated with a rosette which has a central boss and seven expanding, rounded-ended petals. The lower limb of the cross is straight sided and slightly expanding, and stands on an elaborate base which in turn rests on the lower edge of the stone. The lower element of the base consists of a broad roll moulding with rounded ends which supports a similar narrow recessed moulding on which rests a short tapering stem. This supports a series of five mouldings, each with rounded ends, and projecting beyond the stem. The upper and lower mouldings are cabled, and the median moulding pelleted. A broad low-relief moulding with rounded ends separates this group of mouldings from the lower limb of the cross.

The area of rough chiselling in the upper, undecorated, field suggests that a feature has been cut away in the manner of the crucifixion groups at Breamore (no. 1) and Headbourne Worthy (no. 1). Possibly the feature was a Manus Dei. The only evidence for dating derives from the form of the cross on the lower part of the stone. There is no close parallel for its form, but the cross on the panel from London (Stepney) no. 1 has a similar elaborately-moulded base (Ill. 354), and there are similar bases in the crucifixion scene on fol. 9v of the Arenberg Gospels of c. 990–1000 (Fig. 21c; Temple 1976, no. 56, ill. 171) and in the presentation scene on fol. 6r of the Liber Vitae of the New Minster, dated to c. 1031 (ibid., no. 78, ill. 244). In each case, however, the ends of the arms of the cross as well as the base are also elaborately moulded. There is no obvious parallel for the transverse mouldings on the cross-head and arms here, although something similar is encountered on a tenth or eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon or Danish ivory crucifixion now in the National Museum of Denmark (Beckwith 1972, no. 36, pl. 73).

Eleventh century

Page 1911, 398; Cox and Jowitt 1949, 180; Green and Green 1951, pl. XVII; Coatsworth 1979, i, 43 - 4, 281, ii, 50, pl. 7; Tweddle 1986b, i, 89, 222 - 3, ii, 505 - 7, iii, pl. 113a