The Corpus: Leeds 5

Volume 8: Western Yorkshire

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Current Display: Leeds 5, West Riding of Yorkshire

Overview

Object type: Fragment of cross–shaft [1]

Measurements: H. 18 cm (7.1 in); W. 23.5 > 22 cm (9.2 > 8.6 in); D. 22 cm (8.6 in)

Stone type: Sandstone, pale reddish-brown, quartzo-feldspathic, coarse to very coarse, occasionally granular. White kaolinite patches, quartz cemented. Carboniferous (Millstone Grit Group) [G.L.]

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 512-5

Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 204-5

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Present Location

As Leeds 2. Accession number LEEDM.D.1973.338.2

Evidence for Discovery

See Leeds 1. First mentioned by Collingwood (1915a, 211).

Church Dedication

St Peter

Present Condition

A small fragment, very worn

Description

Like Leeds 4, this also seems to be a fragment from the edge of a shaft, showing incomplete parts of two adjacent faces. Between the faces on the edge are the worn remains of a cable moulding, and there is evidence for an inner, perhaps flat, moulding on both faces.

A: The two parallel curving lines crossed by a sub-rectangular bar on this face are convincingly the robed shoulder and left arm of a figure holding a book.

B: Probably part of one volute of a large scroll, but as Collingwood'suggested with reference to his reconstruction (1915b, 287, fig. d), the arrangement of leaves springing from the inner edge of the volute (to fill the space left by what would have to be its tri-lobed terminal and a probable grape bunch) is unusual. The vestiges of leaves depending from the volute to fill the spandrel are more conventional. >

C and D: Missing

Discussion

This could be part of a similar piece to Leeds 4, but the incompleteness of its decoration makes interpretation difficult. Note that the same drawings appear in Collingwood 1915a and 1915b, but in the latter upside down in relation to those in the former: in the latter version the delineation of the robed figure on face A is made quite explicit. The 'scroll' volute on face B is however unusual, as Collingwood (1915b, 287) points out, and the grape bunch is by no means certain.

Date

Probably ninth century

References

Haigh 1856–7, 522, no. 7; Collingwood 1912, 130; Collingwood 1915a, 211, figs. g–h on 210; Collingwood 1915b, 281, 284, 285, 287–8, figs. c–d on 286 (Leeds I), pls. (I) 1, (II) 1A; Collingwood 1927, 109; McGuire and Clark 1987, 24, no. 2, figs. 22, 23, 24, 37; Brears 1989, 63, 65, fig. 2

Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the Leeds stones: Pettigrew 1864, 308–9, 310–11; Bogg 1904, 75–6; MacMichael 1906, 363; Morris 1911, 46; Collingwood 1915a, 209–10, 292; Collingwood 1915b, 267–9, 271–2, 338; Collingwood 1927, 109; Faull 1981, 218; McGuire and Clark 1987, 5–9, 31–2, 42–5; Ryder 1993, 165.