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Object type: Grave-cover [1]
Measurements: L. 166 cm (65.4 in); W. 47 > 37 cm (18.5 > 14.6 in); D. 37 > 31 cm (14.6 > 12.2 in)
Stone type: Yellowish grey (10YR 8/2) oolite grainstone, with ooliths around 0.3mm in diameter (range 0.2 to 0.4mm) and small (1 to 2mm) rounded shell fragments. Ancaster Freestone, Upper Lincolnshire Limestone, Inferior Oolite Group
Plate numbers in printed volume: Fig. 9; Ills. 131–5
Corpus volume reference: Vol 5 p. 142-143
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This is an almost complete grave-cover of the mid-Kesteven type – one of the most complete examples known in the county. Faces A and F have been recut, and the arris between faces D and F has a large rebate cut into it which must relate to a period of reuse as a lintel.
A (top): Decorated with a bold low-relief design but without any border mouldings. This consists essentially of two large circular motifs filled with cross saltires which are joined by a length of cable moulding. At the junctions between the cable moulding and the two circles, a stem bearing three acanthus leaves develops to either side. Between the acanthus sprays, to either side of the cable moulding, is a grid of two rows of cross saltires.
B (long): Decorated with interlace in low relief. The field is divided by borders of double cable into three panels above a slight plinth, two approximately square at either end and a long horizontal panel between. The arrises of the face are also decorated with a single cable moulding, whilst one end is decorated with zig-zag. One small square end panel contains interlace motif type iii, and the other motif type iv (Fig. 10), the interlace having a medial line. The long horizontal panel is subdivided only by a 'bull's head' motif in the centre (Fig. 11). On either side the bull's horns are extended to interlace with two closed-circuit pattern F knots and a single strand passing under the bull's head which links both units. These strands terminate in the four corners of the panel. The interlace has an incised medial line which is carried onto the bull's head and crosses above the nose. The bull's nose is decorated with a zig-zag band in low relief, with an incised saltire cross below.
C (end): Plain, now somewhat weathered.
D (long): Decorated with the same motifs as face B except that both end panels are filled with interlace motifs of type iii (Fig. 10). The bull's head on this face is slightly less elaborate than that on face B, having a band decorated with an incised zig-zag only (Fig. 11). The lower part of the panel has been cut away during reuse.
E (end): Not visible.
F (bottom): Cut smooth, and removed along one edge by the rebate adjacent to face D.
Both Davies (1926, 11) and Baldwin Brown (1937, 141) suggested that, because the design on face A is apparently of twelfth-century date, this face has been recut and the stone reused as a grave-cover, prior to its reuse as a lintel. We agree with this view and would adduce not only the stylistic argument (the style of face A must surely be several generations later than that of faces B and D), but also the fact that the cable mouldings on the arrises of faces B and D, where they adjoin face A seem to have been recut and certainly do not wrap around the angle onto face A. These two cable mouldings are now uncharacteristically thin for original tenth-century work. Brown and Davies, however, interpreted the original monument as a shaft, but we are now able to see the monument in context and explain it by reference to the large number of other members of the mid-Kesteven cover group (Chapter V). The layout and style of the decoration on faces B and D is typical of the mid-Kesteven group of grave-covers (Fig. 9), even though the monument is one of the smaller examples in the group. The monument is also made of the same pinkish-grey fine oolitic limestone from the Ancaster quarries which is characteristic of the group. The original monument belongs, with the remainder of the mid-Kesteven group, to the period between the mid tenth and the early eleventh century, whilst the original lid decoration would have been removed when the present decoration was cut into face A in the first half of the twelfth century.
