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Object type: Fragment of cross-shaft or architectural sculpture [1]
Measurements: L. 63.5 cm (25 in); W. 23.5 cm (9.2 in); D. Built in
Stone type: Sandstone, pale grey-brown, medium- to coarse-grained, hard quartz cemented. Middle Coal Measures, Carboniferous. Ledsham is sited on Magnesian limestone (Permian). The nearest source of Carboniferous sandstones is c. 3 km to the west. [G.L.]
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ill. 469
Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 192-3
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Only one face of the piece is visible. A battered roll moulding survives at top and bottom, and perhaps on the left-hand edge as it now appears.
A (broad): The ornament consists of three opposed volutes of a very finely cut running foliage scroll. The stems in the two outer volutes form a fine interlace with either subsidiary tendrils or with a second stem. The volute on the right throws off one tri-lobed bud or flower with pointed hollow-cut leaves or petals into the spandrel between it and the central volute, and on the bottom right a single curling tendril. The volute on the left has one strand ending in a clubbed tip in the spandrel between it and the central volute, and a leaf in the bottom left-hand corner. There is also a pointed leaf dropping from one of its diagonals to the upper left of the central circle. The central volute is simpler in structure with only one curl of the stem, but this throws off four heart-shaped leaves forming a cross in the centre of the volute.
This piece is incomplete and damaged, but it does not appear to show either the beginning or end of the plant-scroll. This makes it difficult to see whether there is one stem from which the volutes are developed into interlace, or whether these volutes are partly threaded by a second stem interlacing along the length of the scroll. It is, however, very finely cut and filigree-like, in which leaves are subordinate to the delicate interlacing strands. The style is very reminiscent of interlace on eighth-century metalwork with Mercian/Northumbrian connections, but there is also similar interlacing plant ornament on, for example, one of the Witham pins, of the same date, although this is a type of bush-scroll and the leaf forms are different (Wilson 1964, 132–4, pl. XVIII; Webster and Backhouse 1991, 227–8, cat. 184); and there is a fine, spiraliform scroll with minimalistic leaves and buds on some of the side panels of the Rupertus cross from Bischofshofen, Austria (Webster and Backhouse 1991, 170–3, cat. 133). A fine, wiry plant-scroll with asymmetrical interlacing strands is also a feature of the background to the miniature of St John, fol. 124b in the Barberini Gospels (ibid., 205, cat. 160; see Fig. 13f–i, p. 51), again dated to the eighth century and ascribed usually to Mercia, although York has also been suggested (see also Little Ouseburn 5, p. 209, Ill. 535).
In sculpture, the narrow faces of the Easby cross-shaft have fine scrolls with asymmetrical interlacing, although there the stems are ribbed, and in the upper of the two panels there are clearly two stems, interlacing along the length of the scroll (Lang 2001, ill. 204, see also ill. 205). The cross-pattern of leaves in the central volute at Ledsham is a variation on the leaf-whorls found, for example, on the plant-scroll decorated string-courses at Breedon in Leicestershire (Cramp 1977, fig. 50). The fine wiry interlacing plant-scroll is also seen on the related string-courses from Fletton, Huntingdonshire (Clapham 1927, pl. XL, 3 and 4). The connections are therefore all with work of the eighth century. The fragment has no obvious taper, and could be part of a string-course rather than a cross-shaft.
