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Object type: Architectural sculpture, part of a string-course or impost [1]
Measurements: H. 19.6 cm (7.7 in); W. 67 cm (26.4 in); D. 26 cm (10.2 in)
Stone type: Fine-grained, well-sorted micaceous sandstone. An excellent freestone. Main body colour pale brown (10YR 6/3), but burnt on two faces to give a pinkish grey colour (7.5YR 6/2). This stone is locally available and extensively used in the construction of Rothwell church. Thornhill Rock, Westphalian, Upper Carboniferous. [J.S.]
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 680, 682
Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 242-3
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A (broad): The main face has an arcade of which three arches and one incomplete arch survive. Two piers of the arcade survive, the first on the left with fine beaded ornament along its length, the next with a finely cut twist. The third is missing and, with the parts of the arch on either side, seems to have been scabbled away. The most complete surviving arch is a fine double roll moulding. A plant form rises from each of the first two spandrels from the left. The first has a slightly bulbous stem and three leaves, the two outer pointed, the central leaf more rounded: all are certainly hollow-cut. The plant form in the second spandrel was almost certainly exactly the same but is more damaged. The third spandrel, like the arch and the piers themselves, is missing.
Each arch encloses a complete ornament, all different and all very finely cut. The first and third are also very shallow, almost incised, contrasting with the more deeply cut ornaments in arches two and four. (i) The first is incomplete. It appears to have been divided into four compartments by diagonals; the two diagonals surviving on the right terminate in two pairs of pointed leaves. The ornament in the compartments provided by the diagonals is a volute of plant-scroll terminating in a large open flower with hollow-cut petals, probably exactly like the volutes of the bush-scroll in the third arch. (ii) The second arch is filled with an animal moving right, but with its head, which has a high rounded brow and a pointed, beak-like jaw, looking back to the left. Its claw-like feet are in the bottom right corner. Its body has a fine double outline. Its double-stranded tail lengthens into an interlace (pattern E) knot which enmeshes its body, terminating in a heart-shaped hollow-cut tail behind its forelegs. (iii) Here a double stem rises vertically to divide into two volutes at the top, from each of which a second smaller volute extends to fill the lower quarters of a four-part division. Each volute terminates in a fan-shaped flower-head with hollow petals. Paired, pointed, hollow-cut leaves fill the spandrel between two volutes at the top, and are also clearly visible between the two volutes on the left. The right-hand side is damaged along with the missing pier. (iv) The fourth and final compartment has a double-stranded interlace, one register of half-pattern E with added diagonal. The diagonal strands terminate without joining at the upper left and right of the pattern.
B (narrow): This end of the stone appears to have been squared, but there is no surviving decoration and the damaged surface may indicate shaping for reuse.
C (broad) and D (narrow): Broken
The disposition of the ornament on the surviving face and the depth of the piece shows that it was intended to be displayed horizontally, and it is therefore convincingly part of the architectural decoration of a church. It is not clear whether the return on the right is original, rather than re-shaping for its reuse as a building stone. The ornament bears a striking resemblance to the layout and style of the arcade strips on the Maaseik embroideries, which have been dated to c. 800 (Budny and Tweddle 1984, 73–5, pls. I, IV, Va– b). The alternation panel by panel and the miniature style is more reminiscent of the embroidery than it is of any other surviving sculpture. The connections of these embroideries have been seen as Mercian or Kentish. The flower-like termination of the scrolls, the alternation of animal and abstract interlace and plant-scrolls (though usually in longer runs) is also reminiscent of the sculptures from Breedon and related Mercian sites (Cramp 1977, 194–206). The connections with contemporary metalwork are also apparent, in the layout of the designs and the alternation between different cutting styles, suggesting variation between, for example, forms of raised and incised/inlaid patterns in eighth- to ninth-century metalwork, as on the Ormside bowl (Coatsworth and Pinder 2002, pl. IIa–b).
