Winchester City Museum, Historic Resources Centre, Hyde House, Winchester, accessions no. 2943 WS 231

Found in archaeological excavation north of Winchester cathedral in 1964 in spread below re-laid floor in south aisle of New Minster; Final Phase 46-52 (Provisional Phase 605), late tenth- to mid eleventh-century

Old Minster

Three dressed faces survive as reassembled; the carved surface is very damaged and worn.

A: A border, 1.5–2 cm wide, surrounds the interlace on at least three sides. A pelleted band, c. 3 cm wide, forms an oval interlacing with a strand or strands crossing almost at right angles in the middle of the loop. There are hints of further complications to the right.^1]

D, E, and F: The surviving parts of the dressed faces have crisp chisel marks, 1–1.5 cm wide.

The stone is unusual, both because it is cut in chalk, and thus clearly meant only for internal use, and because it is a regular ashlar more than 30 cm long (11.8 in), 29 cm (11.4 in) deep, and 13.8 (5.4 in) high. The stone could conceivably have belonged to an early stage of New Minster, or could have been introduced simply for reuse in the New Minster church, and found unsuitable. This is rather more likely, since the walls of the New Minster church incorporate stone from at least one earlier Anglo-Saxon building (the painted stone, WCM accession number 2943, WS 435, for the discovery of which, see Biddle 1967a; idem 1967b).

Ninth or tenth century

Biddle 1967a, 272, pls. LIV, LIX; Biddle 1967b; Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle 1990b, 45 - 64; Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming a, fig. 148, no. 65