On table tomb in chapel at east end of south aisle

Found built into east wall of chancel above east window in 1859

Sts Peter and Paul

Chipped and slightly worn

It takes the form of a ring of fundamentally rectangular section. On the inside the upper edge is chamfered, and the lower edge rebated. The outer face is divided into approximately equal fields by four prominent, heavily weathered, high-relief, downward-facing animal heads. Each has a broad muzzle and drilled eyes, and terminates in a pair of pointed ears above, but is cut off flush with the lower edge of the ring below. Between each pair of heads is a decorated panel, designated anti-clockwise i –iv. Field i has a plain raised border above and below, and is decorated with a four-strand plain plait. Field ii has borders like field i and is decorated with an animal looking to the right, with its head in the upper left-hand corner of the field. The animal's muzzle is square ended, and its mouth is open. There is a small, blunt, backward-pointing ear. The tapering body curves down to touch the lower border and is carried across the panel to touch the upper border before terminating in interlace, the loose end of which enters the animal's mouth. From the lower edge of the body as it curves towards the upper border develops a leg, bent double and squashed against the lower border. Field iii has borders like field i and decorated with a simple scroll with three tight scrolls, from the junctions of which develop short, rounded-ended axial growths. Each scroll ends in a long tapering leaf crossing diagonally over or under its own stem. Field iv has a broad plain border on all sides and is decorated with median-incised interlace consisting of two simple pattern E loops arranged back to back.

There is no piece of pre-Conquest sculpture of comparable form to the present piece. The simplest way to interpret it is as the separate rim to a cylindrical vessel lined with metal. The rebate would then fit neatly over the folded edge of the vessel lining. This use of a separate decorated vessel rim would be analogous to the use of a metal rim on a drinking horn, such as those from the Trewhiddle hoard (Wilson 1964, nos. 94–6, pl. XXXVII). Similar decorated rims are applied to the wooden cups from Sutton Hoo, Suffolk (Bruce-Mitford 1972, 33–5, fig. 11, pls. H, 21b–d), and their usage into the later Anglo-Saxon period is suggested by the lost rim from Brougham, Westmorland. Bailey views this as a ninth-century Pictish work (Bailey 1977), but it seems reasonable to suggest that similar objects were known in England at the same period. The use of downward-facing animal heads on the rim of the present piece may support such a link, since similar heads in metal were added to the rim of the Ormside bowl (also from Westmorland) in the ninth century. However, these parallels cannot be pressed too far given the differences in scale, material, and place of discovery.

If the Godalming piece is indeed a vessel rim, the question remains as to the type of vessel to which it belonged. The piece seems very small for use with a font, although very little is known about fonts of this early period. An alternative vessel type is the stoup, but no other pre-Conquest example is known.

Ninth century

Heales 1869, 202; Nevill 1880, 282; Malden 1905, 447; Johnston 1913, 33, fig. on 32; Johnston 1926, 232; Cox and Johnston 1935, 109; Mee 1938, 138; Kendrick 1949, 86; Nairn and Pevsner 1971, 256; Bott 1978, 3, 13 - 14, pl. 22; Tweddle 1983b, 35-6, fig. 7, pl. Xb; Tweddle 1986b, i, 80 - 3, 159 - 60, ii, 385 - 7, iii, figs. 6, 21, pls. 45b - 48a; Webster and Backhouse 1991, 246, no. 211