Built into south wall of 'Southern Echo' building, outside

Wall incorporates other fragments, principally of twelfth-century date; attached notice suggests fragments came originally from demolished near-by church of St Ruel, immediately south of 'Southern Echo' office

Built into south wall of 'Southern Echo' building, outside

Worn

Part of a tapering shaft of square section; only part of one broad face is exposed.

A (broad): There is a narrow plain relief border along the lower edge, the upper edge being heavily damaged. The face is decorated with a heavily-damaged pair of ribbon animals whose bodies curve in from either end and meet towards its centre. They are enmeshed in interlace. The body of the left-hand animal is partially pelleted.

The decoration of the piece links it with the cross-shaft from Steventon, also in Hampshire (Ills. 471–2). As noted in Chap. V, these are the eastern outliers of a group of sculptures whose distribution is firmly south-western, and which was first defined by Cottrill (1935). The dating of this group presents a number of problems, but the use within it of features (such as spirals) which were dropping out of use in Anglo-Saxon art in the late eighth century, together with others (such as plant ornament) which were being introduced at that date, points to a late eighth-century floruit for the group. Some sculptures clearly could be earlier in date than this, and others rather later.

Late eighth to ninth century

Cramp 1975, 191 - 2; Tweddle 1983b, 18 - 20, 29; Tweddle 1986b, i, 95, 141 - 6, ii, 516 - 17, iii, pl. 120b