Loose outside south porch

None certainly, unless this is the 'stone, about 6 inches thick, with a cross roughly cut on the front and the back' removed from the south-west quoin of the tower during building operations in 1907 ((—) 1907–8, lxviii–lxix). But this piece does not have a cross on both sides.

St Margaret

Slightly weathered on upper decorated surface, not abraded

A fragment from near the head end of a small, flat tapered grave-cover, decorated in relief on the upper surface only.

A (top): The decoration consists of a rectangular cross (type A1) standing in 1cm relief above a plain surface. Its longitudinal member is markedly narrower than the cross member.

B and D (long): Original surfaces, regularly battered.

C and E (ends): Irregularly broken.

F (bottom): Split.

This piece finds its closest analogies in covers with plain relief crosses such as Winterton 1 (Ill. 388). Small flat tapered covers form part of the funerary repertoire at St Mark's, Lincoln, with a wide general date bracket of eleventh to thirteenth century. Simple rectangular crosses of type A1, with nil or little decorative elaboration, also form part of a local pre-Conquest tradition, as with nos. 8 and 10 at St Mark's (Ills. 248, 246–7). By the end of the eleventh or early twelfth century not only has interlace disappeared, but in examples such as the pair of covers at Langton by Wragby (Ills. 228–9) the form of the monument is coped, the longitudinal member has become narrow, and the cross-arms are markedly wedge-shaped in a head of type B6.

Eleventh or early twelfth century

Unpublished