Richmondshire Museum, Richmond, on display (accession no. 1388)

Gilling West 9 and 10 were found in 1976 during construction work about 200 yards (180 m) above Gilling Bridge on the south bank of Gilling Beck, reused as covering slabs to an eighteenth-century field drain: they were retrieved by L. P.Wenham (Lang and Morris 1978a, 6). The site is about 150 yards (135 m) west of the church. [1]

None

Damaged on one corner but crisp

A (broad): An encircled equal-armed cross stands in relief from a roughly dressed background. The ring is modelled and varies slightly in width. The cross is of type D9 with wide curved arm-pits and cusped arms. At its centre is the hole made by a compass for laying out the ring. There are tooling marks on the cross itself.

B and D (narrow): Plain.

C (broad): Plain with tooling marks.

The rough dressing on the reverse face might suggest that the slab's function was as a recumbent grave-cover, but it is rather short for this purpose. Equally it may have been reused as an architectural embellishment: see Middleton 9 in Ryedale (Lang 1991, 187, ill. 694). The rounded corners and medial placing of the cross may point to such a use. The cusped arms of the cross are uncompromisingly Anglian, and the ring is not linked to the arms, unlike later wheel-head crosses.

Ninth century

Lang and Morris 1978a, 6, 8–9, pl. on 8; Lang and Morris 1978b, 127–9, pl. XX; Morris, C. 1978, 44, 45; Hatcher 1990, 95 and ill.; Henderson, I. 1999, 164; Hatcher 2000, 11 and ill.

[1] It is possible that the late Anglo-Saxon sword found in Gilling Beck in the same year (Watkin 1986) derived from one or other of the burials represented by nos. 9 and 10. (Eds.)