The Corpus: Winchester (Old Minster) 19

Volume 4: South-East England

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Current Display: Winchester (Old Minster) 19, Hampshire

Overview

Object type: Fragment of base

Measurements: H. 12.4 > 9 cm (4.9 > 3.5 in); W. 16.4 > 8 cm (6.5 > 3.1 in); D. 13 > 3 cm (5.1 > 1.2 in)

Stone type: Whitish-grey, fine-grained, porous, foraminiferal limestone, with numerous moulds of cerithiid gastropods and some of fine-ribbed bivalves; Cerithium limestone, from upper part of Calcaire Grossier Formation, Palaeogene, Tertiary; Paris basin

Plate numbers in printed volume: Fig. 40; Ill. 517

Corpus volume reference: Vol 4 p. 285

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Present Location

Winchester City Museum, Historic Resources Centre, Hyde House, Winchester, accessions no. 2943 WS 103

Evidence for Discovery

Found in archaeological excavation north of Winchester cathedral in 1965 reused in Norman bell-foundry which cuts tenth-century east apse of Old Minster; Final Phase 65 (Provisional Phase 679), early twelfth-century

Church Dedication

Old Minster

Present Condition

One bed face survives; the carved surface is battered.

Description

Reconstructed diameter at bed face, 32 cm (12.6 in). Fig. 40 shows the fragment as if it is part of the top of a base. The mouldings are deep and bulge strongly outwards.

Discussion

This base probably came from the late tenth-century east apse of Old Minster, but the bell-foundry also cuts the seventh- and eighth-century east end. This fragment has an earlier feel. The top diameter as calculated, of almost one Carolingian (Drusian) foot, should be noted.

Date

Late tenth century or earlier

References

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming a, fig. 141, no. 17

M.B.; B.K.-B.

Endnotes