Reset in a modern cement base which stands at the west end of the south aisle

'A very fine example ... was found two or three years ago (i.e. c. 1890) built into the Old Manor House at Harmston which is now preserved at Harmston Hall' (Penny 1894–5b, 226). By 1913 it had been mounted in its present base and placed in the church (Davies 1912–13, 141); however Davies subsequently reported that it stood 'on the hill for several years' – presumably between c. 1890 and c. 1910 (Davies 1916–17, 57).

All Saints

Good; slightly weathered

A section which represents most of the length of a small upright shaft decorated in low relief. Three of the angles preserve their original cable moulding, the fourth angle has been recut with a chamfer, presumably during reuse.

A (broad): The lower part of the shaft is decorated with two runs of finely executed interlace. Both runs are of four-strand plait, however that to the right is decorated with an incised medial line. The interlace runs do not terminate within the base of the present stone and they are truncated by a small figurative panel towards the top of the face. The panel, which has no separate borders, contains a small Calvary group (Ill. 199). The cross has simple, rectangular arms and carries a stiff, straight-armed Christ with separately depicted straight legs. Christ wears a loin cloth decorated with diagonally incised lines. The surface of the sculpture has worn away, losing any further detail in the figure. Above Christ's head is a small T-shaped addition to the surface of the cross, which represents the Manus Dei. Below Christ's feet, the stem of the cross is decorated with a low relief cross saltire, which may be without iconographic significance. To left and right stand Mary and John, represented as a pair of doll-like figures wrapped in heavy shawls with diagonally incised surfaces. Both appear to be represented in a three-quarter stance, whilst the figure on the right may have an arm raised towards the cross. Above the upper interstices of the cross are the start of two more runs of interlace, also of four-strand plait, which expand over the top of the upper arm to occupy the whole field above it.

B and D (narrow): Both of the side panels are decorated with a simple raised zig-zag band of rectangular section, which neither originates nor terminates within the surviving shaft.

C (broad): As on face A, the lower parts of face C are decorated with two parallel runs of four-strand plait. Towards the top of the face, however, these are terminated against a mandorla or vesica defined by a simple undecorated border of rectangular section. Within the mandorla is a single figure, sadly now rather abraded and missing his or her head (Ill. 200). The figure is wearing a full-length robe with incised diagonal lines of the same character as the figures of Mary and John on face A. To left and right of the figure are two abraded patches indicating the former presence of further detail, but it is no longer possible to say whether these areas represent two further figures or simply the upraised arms of the central figure.

Shafts decorated with interlace which have set within them small narrative panels are found throughout the Anglo-Scandinavian period and the Calvary scene on the Harmston cross can be compared for example with the figures within the shaft at Stonegrave, Yorkshire NR, or the 'Giant's Thumb' at Penrith, Cumberland (Collingwood 1927, figs. 150, 162). Compared with many of these Anglo-Scandinavian shafts, however, Harmston is a well-regulated and competently executed example. The iconography of the Crucifixion scene (Ill. 199) is of a standard type, with Mary and John placed below the cross and with the Manus Dei over Christ's head (Coatsworth 1979; 1988). The doll-like Mary and John figures find parallels locally with the figure inserted into face C of the Edenham 1 shaft (Ill. 167) and with the figures of Mary and John below the cross on Minting 1 (Ill. 460). The Calvary at Harmston also has similarities of scale and layout with the scene at Minting, but the later date of Minting is clear from the much more intricately articulated drapery and the sagging legs of the crucifixus. The similarities with Minting, however, tend to place the Harmston shaft squarely in the eleventh century, as indeed do other details such as the zig-zag motif along the sides – found, for example, on a late shaft at Lastingham, Yorkshire NR (Lang 1991, ills. 578–9) and on an eleventh-century grave-cover at Sockburn, co. Durham (Cramp 1984, pls. 153, 799 and 154, 801).

The identity of the figure in the mandorla on face C remains a mystery (Ill. 200). It most closely resembles a figure of Christ in Judgement, a subject which would be appropriate on the reverse of the Crucifixion on the other face of the shaft. In such a reading the two areas of damage to left and right of the mandorla might indicate where the figures of St Peter and the Virgin or of a pair of angels have been removed. Depictions of Christ standing in judgement are, however, very rare, and there must be other contenders for this figure's identity; the Virgin in glory is often depicted within a mandorla of this character in later medieval art, but there do not appear to be examples of this topic at this early date. We must also not discount the possibility that it represents an obscure local saint.

It is possible, given comparable sizes and similarities of stone type, that the late cross-head from Harmston (no. 2 below) could have come from this shaft originally, though this would tend to place the monument even later in the eleventh century than the detail on the shaft alone would justify. It is suggested below that the cross-head Harmston 2 might have had some reliquary function and, if the two stones are connected, this might have influenced the iconography on face C.

Eleventh century

Penny 1894–5b, 226; Fowler 1896, 3; Davies 1912–13, 130, 141; Davies 1914–15, plate between 128–9; Davies 1915, 53; Davies 1916–17, 57; Cox 1924, 157; Clapham 1926, 5; Davies 1926, 13, pl. III; Butler 1963–4, 112; Pevsner and Harris 1964, 26, 565; Taylor and Taylor 1965, 285–6; Coatsworth 1979, I, 271–2, II, 25, pls. 132–4; Coatsworth 1988, 173, 190, pl. IId; Pevsner et al. 1989, 43, 367; Stocker with Everson 1990, 88