Winchester City Museum, Historic Resources Centre, Hyde House, Winchester, accessions no. 2943 WS 454

Unstratified; found in 1967 north of Winchester cathedral, lying loose in north-west bay of buttresses of north aisle; probably derived from tenth-century west end of Old Minster

Old Minster

A small area of one dressed face survives, lower right; the carved surface is well preserved.

The carved pattern is divided by a right-angled border with an interlaced lower corner consisting of inner and outer loops. To the lower right the field is triangular, the dressed face forming the hypotenuse, and the interior has three diagonal bands. The top right field is framed at the top by a curving element which passes under the upright of the outer framing loop. This field has two right angled corners and five diagonal bands which continue the bands in the field below. The top left field has the same upper limit as the top right field but, instead of diagonal interior bands, has one slightly curved vertical ribbon. The bottom frame is formed by the top of the outer loop of the lower corner, and is thus not right-angled. There is a hint of another curved element to the left.

The fragment is probably part of a major scene.

Tenth century

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming a, fig. 149, no. 67