On a window sill above the priest's door in the south wall of the chancel, inside

'Found while making a grave in the churchyard at Thornton Steward, Yorkshire, October 1883. It represents part of the shaft and the head of a cross on which is sculptured the figure of the Saviour' (Brock 1888, 179).

St Oswald

The neck of a shaft, very worn. The arm recorded by Collingwood is missing (see Ill. 788).

A (broad) : The edge moulding is worn. Within it is a second moulding, also 1 inch wide. The neck narrows to accommodate the type 1a ring which survives only as stumps at each side. The arm-pits within the ring were circular, though the cross is of type B10. Within the neck of the shaft is a central triangle flanked by plain diagonal broad strands. Below is a framed panel of median-incised strand interlace: the terminal of a pattern F loop with added diagonals, of which Collingwood noted 'the want of sequence in the plait' (1907, 402). The missing arm (ibid., fig. d) contained a large spread hand that filled the panel.

B (narrow) : The edge moulding is worn. The panel contains a four-cord plait in modelled strand, 1 inch wide like the edge moulding.

C (broad) : The edge moulding is like face A's, and the neck has an identical motif to that on face A. The inner edge moulding frames closed circuit interlace in broad median-incised strand, in a disorganised three-cord plait.

D (narrow) : The edge moulding is that of the other faces. The panel contains a disorganised four-cord plait.

All the cutting is hacked work and the interlace is unplanned. The lost arm resembled the fashion of the two crosses at Thornton Watlass (Ills. 812, 813) in having disproportionately large hands for Christ. Collingwood's drawing of the triangular feature in the lower limb conveys the impression of legs astride and with splayed feet; there is no sign of feet today. The ring-head is an indication of a Hiberno-Norse milieu (see Chap. IV, p. 26).

First half of tenth century

Brock 1888, 179n, 409; Morris, J. 1904, 380, 420; Collingwood 1907, 271, 273, 280, 288, 402, figs. c–d on 403; Collingwood 1912, 127; Collingwood 1915, 280, 282; Collingwood 1926a, 326; Collingwood 1927a, 105, 143, fig. 129c–d; Morris, J. 1931, 380, 417; Elgee and Elgee 1933, 217; Pontefract and Hartley [1936], 139; Mee 1941, 240; Coatsworth 1979, I, 249–50, 309, II, 48–9, no. 1, pl. 118

[1] The following are general references to the Thornton Steward stones: Hodges 1894, 195; Speight 1897, 338; Morris, R. 1989, 248; Hatcher 1990, 237; Binns 1995, 266.