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Object type: Incomplete architectural feature [1]
Measurements: H. 49 cm (19.3 in) W. 29.5 > 28.6 cm (11.6 > 11.3 in) D. 19.5 > 11 cm (7.7 > 4.3 in)
Stone type: Ferruginous sandstone, with well sorted sub-rounded grains. Slightly feldspathic. Brown to dark brown (10YR 4/3). Deltaic sandstone from the Saltwick Formation, Aalenian, Middle Jurassic of the North York Moors
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 1116–18
Corpus volume reference: Vol 6 p. 273
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Only one face is carved.
A (broad) : In the centre is a panel of four-cord interlace (simple pattern F) with median-incised strands forming Carrick bends; on one side this is edged by a deep roll and cable moulding, and on the other by large pellets. All of the ornament is deeply cut (about 3 cm) and the background is smoothly finished with a chisel.
B (narrow) : Smoothly dressed and chamfered.
C (broad) and D (narrow) : Plain and smoothly dressed.
This seems most likely to have been a door jamb as Collingwood'supposed (1907, 413), although it is possible that it could have been a lintel. However if no. 9 which has the same ornament is part of the same piece then it would have extended the length/width by at least 23 cm (9 in). Adcock (1974, 107) has compared the form of the piece with a similar fragment from Monkwearmouth (Cramp 1984, no. 17, pl. 124, 681), as both have a border of interlace with a smoothly worked face sloping away from it. The bold, deeply cut interlace with which this piece is decorated is a later type than that at Wearmouth and more typically Deiran, being in fact closely similar to Melsonby 1 and 2 (Ills. 654, 659).
Certainly this piece and no. 9 suggest a church of some pretension on the site. Collingwood considered such architecture 'would fit with the statement that the villa of "Wigeclif ultra Tese" was built by Bishop Ecgred (Hist. de S. Cuthberto, apud Symeon, 142) who was consecrated 830' (Collingwood 1915, 287; Symeon 1868, 142), whilst Cambridge (1984, 76) has suggested that Wycliffe might have been a dependency of Gainford. Whether the church of a bishop's vill or of a monasterium, this church and its burial ground, like those of Gainford and Sockburn to the north of the Tees, may have passed into lay control and served as an important burial place for the Anglo-Scandinavian overlords by the tenth century. (For such a process see Craster 1954, 182; Morris, C. 1977, 92; Cambridge 1984, 73; Cramp 1989, 215.)
