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Object type: Cross-arm fragment
Measurements: L. 17.5 cm (6.9 in) W. 15 cm (5.9 in) D. 7.5 > 7.2 cm (3 > 2.8 in)
Stone type: Very fine-grained calcareous sandstone, no mica present, well sorted and has been burnt to a reddish yellow (5YR 6/6) colour. This cross must have been manufactured from Middle Calcareous Grit (Corallian, Upper Jurassic), and is important in that it seems to have come from the Stonegrave minster quarries (Senior 1991, 14–15), which rarely exported similar sculpture over wide areas of east Yorkshire.
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 140–6
Corpus volume reference: Vol 6 p. 88-89
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A (broad) : The double cusped cross-arm, of type D10, is broken at its narrowest point. The edge moulding is plain and flat-band and sharply cut at its corners. Filling the panel within is a plant-scroll terminating in a pendant leaf flower. The stalk has split stems, the off-shoots terminating in single oval leaflets with scooped centres. The remains of a second damaged leaf flower survives near the fracture. The nodes are marked faintly by a single transverse band across the fleshy stem, which has a humped section.
B (narrow) : Broken away.
C (broad) : The edge moulding is identical with that on face A. Within the panel is a very open plant-scroll with a fleshy, humped sectioned stem. A ridged node marks a split stem, one shoot tapering to a plain half-moon leaf with pointed tip; the inner shoot hangs down and terminates on fragment no. 2 in a scooped triple leaf. A second stem curls to the top left corner with a split stem and damaged node. The principal shoot hangs down with a curled shoot near its junction; the other fills the corner with a half-moon leaf whose tip is curled and scooped.
D, E and F (narrow faces and end) : All plain and smoothly dressed.
This delicately carved fragment is comparable with the most competent Deiran carving, such as the similar graceful flowing scrolls on the cross-shafts from Easby (Ills. 204–5, 210–11) or Hackness (Lang 1991, ill. 454). Typical of the period are the long curling and scooped leaves, such as are found in late eighth- to early ninth-century metalwork such as the Pentney brooches (Webster and Backhouse 1991, fig. 187f). Leaf flowers such as these have a long history in Northumbrian sculpture and one can compare the scrolls at Bewcastle, but these are stylistically different, as are the scrolls which decorate the cross-heads at Carlisle (Bailey and Cramp 1988, ills. 204, 207).
Crayke was an important centre as an early possession of the Lindisfarne community and a staging point for them on their journeys to York (Cambridge 1989, 380–5; Adams 1990, 29-35). It is not surprising then to find here a piece of such quality.
