The Corpus: Oxford (St Aldate's) 01

Volume 4: South-East England

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Current Display: Oxford (St Aldate's) 01, Oxfordshire

Overview

Object type: Fragment

Measurements: H. 10 cm (4 in); (W. 30 cm (11.8 in); D. 22 cm (8.7 in)

Stone type: Oolitic limestone, with light yellow ooliths close-packed in a fine grey matrix, including an ostreid fragment and pieces of fossil wood; Bladon stone, White Limestone Formation, Great Oolite group, Middle Jurassic; from Bladon, 10 km NW of Oxford

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 359-360

Corpus volume reference: Vol 4 p. 235

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Present Location

Ashmolean Museum. Accession number 1938.386. On loan to Oxford City Museum

Evidence for Discovery

Found during excavations in 1937-8 and donated to Ashmolean Museum by Merton College in 1938; site occupied in later Middle Ages by Batte's inn, afterwards Fleur de Luce inn

Church Dedication

St Aldate's

Present Condition

Broken and worn

Description

Rectangular fragment, only one face of which is carved; the other edges are roughly broken. It is dressed flat above and below. The decorated edge is ornamented with tightly-packed undulating, half-round mouldings.

Discussion

The stone was identified in the contemporary excavation report as part of a grave-cover. This identification is improbable as the decoration is not paralleled elsewhere among surviving grave-covers in south-east England, nor is the shape of the fragment easily reconciled with the shape of any surviving grave-cover. In fact the decoration most closely resembles the depictions of the clouds from which the Hand of God issues at Breamore 1 (Ill. 427) and Headbourne Worthy 1 (Ill. 448) in Hampshire. Even so, the comparison is not particularly close, and perhaps the piece should not be regarded as securely associated with the pre-Conquest period.

Date

Tenth century

References

Daniell 1938, 172; R.C.H.M. 1939, xix, pl. 9; Tweddle 1986b, i, 112, 251, ii, 429 - 30, iii, pl. 69b

D.T.

Endnotes