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Object type: Slab of uncertain function
Measurements: L. 160 cm (63 in); W. 25 cm (9.8 in); D. 53 cm (20.9 in)
Stone type: [Ancaster Freestone, Upper Lincolnshire Limestone, Inferior Oolite Group]
Plate numbers in printed volume: 433, 438
Corpus volume reference: Vol 5 p. Vol 5 p. 320
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Reset in the south aisle west wall, east face, where it serves as a lintel for the west lancet.
None. The south aisle west lancet, and its associated wall, is probably somewhat earlier than the fourteenth-century date of the remainder of the aisle fabric. Consequently, Barrowby 2 was probably reset in this position in the middle or later thirteenth century.
Good; somewhat weathered
This slab is apparently mostly complete, but it is nevertheless difficult to understand its original function. It is a thick slab which appears undecorated on at least one of the broad faces (that at present visible within the window), though it is decorated on at least one of the narrow sides. At the extreme north end of this face is a roundel defined by a single moulding containing a sexfoil. The end of the stone is curved to fit the border of the roundel. The leaves of the sexfoil centre on a small boss and are separated by small pellets. Extending from the roundel towards the centre of the visible face is an incised oblong panel, plain but with a double moulding at the broader end.
Appendix G item (the continuing tradition).
In form this slab does not find any parallels with known types of funeral sculpture and it may, consequently, have been an item of furniture. As the stone appears decorated on one side but not on a major face it may be suggested that it was intended to be seen side-on. This might lead to interpretation as an object such as an altar stone. If this is the correct interpretation, however, the stone is probably incomplete, as the surviving roundel should be matched by an equivalent at the other end of the stone.
The surviving roundel, however, allows the stone to be dated with confidence to the early or mid twelfth century, whatever its function. The style and layout of the roundel is so similar to those on the Aunsby cross-shaft (Ills. 434, 436) that a common source of production may be suggested.
de Ville 1977, 1–2; Stocker with Everson 1990, 88
