The Corpus: Gilling West 06

Volume 6: Northern Yorkshire

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Current Display: Gilling West 06, Yorkshire North Riding

Overview

Object type: Cross-arm fragment

Measurements: L. 14.5 cm (5.7 in) W. 22.2 cm (8.75 in) D. 15 cm (5.9 in)

Stone type: As Gilling West 1 (St Agatha), but this stone has been intensively burnt. Original colour brownish yellow (10YR 6/8) burnt to yellowish red (5YR 5/8) on all faces, including broken face (which is significant), i.e. broken before burnt, as with other crosses elsewhere.

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 285–7

Corpus volume reference: Vol 6 p. 116

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Present Location

See Gilling West 1 (St Agatha)

Evidence for Discovery

See Gilling West 1 (St Agatha)

Church Dedication

St Agatha

Present Condition

Broken and worn; hacked

Description

The tip of an arm with a slightly convex end.

A (broad): The edge moulding is broad and modelled. Within are two divergent U-bend terminals in modelled strand.

B (narrow): Broken.

C (broad): The edge moulding is as on face A, and encloses a bungled figure-of-eight twist with a free strand added. The U-bend terminal tapers into the corner. The carving is pecked work.

D (narrow): The edge moulding of the arm-tip is roughly hacked and contains a disorganised twist consisting of a triquetra with a free half-loop at the top.

Discussion

The bungled patterns give this piece a rustic quality, a reflex of Anglo-Scandinavian closed circuits.

Date

Tenth century

References

Collingwood 1907, 322, figs. g–i on 323; Collingwood 1912, 118, 124, figs. g–i

Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the Gilling West stones: Browne 1880–4, cx, cxii; Allen and Brown 1885, 353; (—) 1890–5b, xxvi; Hodges 1894, 195; Speight 1897, 176; Morris, J. 1904, 161, 420; Bogg 1908, 167; Page, W. 1914, 81; Glynne 1915, 472; Morris, J. 1931, 162, 417; Elgee and Elgee 1933, 189, 247; Mee 1941, 91; Lang and Morris 1976b, 130; Laybourn 1979, 2–3, fig. 1; O'Sullivan and Young 1980, 13; Hatcher 1990, 95; Laybourn 1996, 1–2; Hadley 2000, 242. Gilling West has been identified with Ingetlingum, the site of a monastery founded in the seventh century in atonement for the murder of Oswine, king of Deira (Bede 1896, H.A.A. ch. 2; Bede 1969, H.E. III.14, III.24). The churchyard is curvilinear, but limited excavations in 1979 produced only post-medieval material from beneath the enclosure bank (O'Sullivan and Young 1980, 13–14). (Eds.)