Winchester City Museum, Historic Resources Centre, Hyde House, Winchester, accessions no. 2943 WS 263

Found in archaeological excavation north of Winchester cathedral in 1964 in rubble from demolition of Old Minster baptistery or north wall of nave; Final Phase 58 (Provisional Phase 990), c. 1093-4

Old Minster

One dressed face survives, covered with smooth pink whitewash; the carved surfaces are battered.

An upright or perhaps a corner element with an elaborate deep relief framed at the bottom by a flat border, 2 cm wide, and by a ridged border to the left. The relief stands 3.5 cm from the background surface and shows the bottom three twists of a S-twisted column composed of bands 3.5 cm wide. The diameter of the column is 8 cm, and it stands on a horizontal band or 'plinth', below which just enough survives to show that there once was a line of dentils separated by angled rectangular slots. The whitewash on the left side is applied as if this surface was meant to be seen when the piece was in situ.

This fragment may have been part of the frame of a window or door, or could be from the decoration of some other salient angle, probably internal because of the whitewash. It could also come from an elaborate monument. It may have formed part of the decorative scheme of the Old Minster baptistery. Twisted columns, as distinct from columns with spiral fluting like those from Hart 11a–d, co. Durham, dated to the earlier ninth century (Cramp 1984, i, 96–7, ii, pl. 83 (422–4)), are rare. But cable patterns like that on the present carving were found at Monkwearmouth 23, co. Durham (Cramp 1984, i, 132, ii, pl. 124 (684)), dated to the seventh to ninth centuries. This little column, Winchester (Old Minster) no. 42, with twists almost half as wide as the diameter, is comparable to the monumental twisted columns in the Repton Crypt (Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming b). These have a bottom diameter of 40–42 cm (15.7–16.5 in) and twists 15 cm, and 20–22 cm wide, about half the column diameter. The twists of the Winchester column are bulging, like the Repton twists, and not at all like the hollow spiral flutes of a Classical column. It may be significant that the Repton crypt may have been a baptistery in an initial stage of its development. For a general discussion, see Winchester (Old Minster) no. 47.

Seventh century or later

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming a, fig. 145, no. 42