Volume 4: South-East England

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Current Display: Winchester (Old Minster) 12, Hampshire Forward button Back button
Overview
Present Location
Winchester City Museum, Historic Resources Centre, Hyde House, Winchester, accessions no. 2943 WS 32
Evidence for Discovery
Found in archaeological excavation north of Winchester cathedral in 1965 in fill of Norman bell-foundry cut into demolished tenth-century east apse of Old Minster; Final Phase 65 (Provisional Phase 734), early twelfth-century
Church Dedication
Old Minster
Present Condition
No bed face survives; the carved surface is battered.
Description
Reconstructed diameter of column, 40.4 cm (15.9 in). The small fragment is composed of a complex stepped and sloping horizontal moulding.
Discussion
The stone is Calcaire Grossier of the variety found in East Kent and used, for example, for the Reculver cross fragments (no. 1). The drum probably came from the tenth-century east end of Old Minster, but could have derived from the seventh-or eighth-century east end, the robbing of which is also cut by the bell-foundry in which the carving was reused.
Date
Late tenth century or earlier, perhaps seventh or eighth
References
Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming a, fig. 141, no. 9
M.B.; B.K.-B.
Endnotes

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