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Chapters for this volume, along with copies of original in-text images, are available here.
Object type: Imposts of the chancel arch and connected frieze, in three pieces separated by modern stone [1]
Measurements:
North side: H. 19.2 cm (7.6 in)
W. (west face) 42.6 cm (16.8 in) at left side; 8.8 cm (3.5 in) before turn to south face, out of a total width of 152.5 cm (60 in); (south face): 63.4 cm (25 in) out of a total width of 87.5 cm (34.4 in); (east face) 60.4 cm (23.7 in) (all modern)
South side: H. 19.5 cm (7.7 in)
W. (west face): 8 cm (3.1 in); (north face) 69.4 cm (27.3 in) out of a total width of 88.2 cm (34.8 in); east face: 60.5 cm (23.8 in) (all modern)
Stone type: 5a–b: North side, west and south faces (partly replaced with new stone): sandstone, pale grey-brown, fine- to medium -grained, hard quartz-cemented. Carboniferous. 5c: South side, north and west faces (this impost is heavily weathered, beginning to fragment): Sandstone, yellowish-brown, fine- to medium-grained, quartzose with feldspars. Carboniferous. See Ledsham (All Saints) 1. [G.L.]
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 471-5
Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 197-8
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The pattern, identical on all faces, can be read as either a series of 'contiguous circles each enclosing an arcuated four-side figure' (Bailey 1983, 6), each circle with a small raised boss at the centre and in the spandrels between the circles; or as a series of stylised four-leaved flowers, with a small raised boss between each pair of leaves. The petals are hollow and pointed at both ends.
Bailey (1983) has suggested that the ambiguity of the pattern may have been deliberate. He also pointed out that the difference between original and replaced portions is manifest, both in the colour of the stone and in the mechanical regularity of the pattern in the replaced portions, unlike the original portions where the circles are varied in circumference to fit the frame and the position along the length. Observers before Bailey assumed the ornament was Norman or at any rate a later addition than the Anglo-Saxon chancel arch. Variations of this pellet-and-leaf design, however, some more stylised than others, are found on Jarrow 24 (co. Durham), Hexham 34 and Simonburn 4 (Northumberland), all architectural sculptures (Cramp 1984, 118, 190, 224, fig. 17, pls. 185.1015, 218.1238), and most importantly for the present discussion, in the West Riding at Ripon, on a piece of church furniture (see Ripon 8, p. 238, Ill. 667).
The sources of the design lie in the late antique world and examples survive in Visigothic Spain (Palol and Hirmer 1967, pl. 17; see Ill. 866). The occurrence of this motif supports an early date for the church at Ledsham, to a period when Mediterranean elements were not completely subordinated to Insular taste (Cramp 1974, 119–29; id. 1978a, 6).
