Volume 4: South-East England

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Current Display: Winchester (Old Minster) 20, Hampshire Forward button Back button
Overview
Present Location
Winchester City Museum, Historic Resources Centre, Hyde House, Winchester, accessions no. 2943 WS 405
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
Two bed faces, E (top) and F (bottom) survive; the carved surface is battered.
Description
Reconstructed diameter at lower bed face, (F), 26 cm (10.2 in), at upper bed face, (E), 48.2 (19 in); distance between bed faces 32.6 (12.8 in). Below the right-angled abacus(?), the piece narrows in two down-turned mouldings, with a more standard tripartite band at the lower edge. The piece has been pierced from top to bottom by a square(?), perhaps central, hole.
Discussion
There is no comparable capital or base from Winchester. It need not come from the west end of Old Minster, where the medieval chapel of St Swithun was built, but there is no reason why it should not have done.
Date
Late tenth century or earlier
References
Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming a, fig. 142, no. 18
M.B.; B.K.-B.
Endnotes

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