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Object type: Grave-marker
Measurements: L.> 17 cm (6.7 in) W. 43 cm (16.9 in) D. 6 cm (2.4 in)
Stone type: [Ancaster Freestone, Upper Lincolnshire Limestone, Inferior Oolite Group]
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 390–1
Corpus volume reference: Vol 5 p. 273
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Only a small part of this large rectangular grave-marker is visible although it is probably quite complete. It has incised decoration on both faces. Both corners have been trimmed off and both faces have been given a neat chamfer – work probably done when the marker was reset in its present position.
A (broad, now facing upwards): This face has a border defined by a single incised line, within which is an incised diagonal grid pattern.
C (broad, now facing downwards): The other face has more complex decoration within a similar border. With so little visible it is not easy to make much of the design. The pattern appears to be almost symmetrical about a central line, which may develop into a cross (articulated with several lines) on the part of the stone hidden within the wall. If this is a correct interpretation, then the upper interstices may be filled with smaller crosses of which only the upper extremities are visible.
This marker is very similar in size, layout and execution to the 'gridded' markers at Ancaster and Swarby (Ills. 10, 356–7), which are also of a very similar stone type – probably from quarries in Ancaster or Wilsford parishes (Chapter V and Table 7C). Within this small group Wilsford 2 has strong similarities with the more clearly expressed designs on the rectangular markers of the Lincoln and Lindsey group. If the interpretation of the design on face C is correct then it is quite similar to Lincoln St Mark 7 and 11 (Ills. 249, 250), and particularly to the rectangular marker St Mark 17, which also has secondary crosses in the upper interstices (Ill. 256). However, this small group of 'gridded' markers are clearly not Lincoln products; they are not only of an obviously different stone type, but differentiated from the Lincoln markers by their sketchy incised technique. Even so, the Wilsford marker can be dated by reference to the Lindsey group. Large rectangular markers of this sort seem to be rare after the eleventh century anyway, and if the proposed reconstruction is correct, the parallel with the markers from Lincoln St Mark's would probably place the Wilsford example in the later tenth or early eleventh century.
