At the west end of the nave, set on an octagonal pedestal.

First mentioned by Haigh (1869–70, 205–8), who reported that he first saw it in the churchyard in 1855, prior to which it had served as a step for the entrance to the school, before that was rebuilt. The stone was placed on its present octagonal pedestal by the Bradford Historical and Antiquarian Society in 1898, as recorded on a small plaque attached to the pedestal.

All Saints

Damaged and worn

A: This face appears to be set out in lines for lettering, which from Haigh (1869–70) onwards has been seen as runes, although readings by those prepared to make them have varied considerably. No-one in modern times has been able to decipher them. Collingwood (1915a, 141–4) gives an admirable description of an attempt to read the lettering in a good light, and even then was unable to support the conclusions reached by earlier observers, although he saw a cross at the beginning of the first line and suggested possible readings for about eight of the letters. Page (1969, 34) said it was 'now completely illegible, except for a few scattered and doubtfully identifiable runes'. The only agreement seems to be that there were three, possibly four lines of text, separated by incised lines, and there also seems to be agreement that the letters were runes.

B: A loose, angular and irregular twist or pseudo-interlace, median incised. The exit hole for the drain, cut into a corner of the base inside, is in the lower right-hand corner.

C: Irregular and very angular twist or pseudo-interlace with loose pellets.

D: Irregular pseudo-interlace, with some very angular turns, incorporating pellets and one large loose ring.

It is difficult both to date this piece and to say what it is, and this is not only because the runes are unreadable, but because of the relative crudity of the decoration and the overall form of the piece. Bailey (1980, 52) expressed his frustration on the dating issue, saying that but for the illegibility of text, the 'Bingley font represented our best hope of finding ornament accompanied by a runic inscription which would date it to the Viking period'. However, apart from the lack of convincing readings of the inscription, the clumsiness and irregularity, and the large scale of the design in relation to the space, mean that it is very difficult to find parallels to the decoration, although this does contain elements found in pre-Conquest, Anglo-Scandinavian, sculpture, including the pellets, the loose ring, and the angular twists apparently emulating interlace. There are a number of pieces in the West Riding which have versions of the loose twist, including free rings, for example at Thorp Arch and Wighill (Ills. 722, 766–8), and the former in particular has a twist with broad angular curves and large loops reminiscent of face B, but they are difficult to compare directly, as both are finer carvings (and in limestone) and on a smaller scale, and neither has the scattered pellets. The large-scale twist, loose rings and pellets are all found on west Yorkshire cross-shafts which are certainly twelfth century, at Barnburgh, Rawmarsh and Thrybergh (Appendix B, pp. 286, 288, 289) which have been said to have a distinct 'Anglo-Saxon stamp', and indeed sometimes have been wrongly dated to the pre-Conquest period (Brown 1937, 142–5, pls. XXXVIII, XXXIX), but these are also more regular in layout. Overall, the connections with the late pre-Conquest sculpture are the more convincing. The stone is the same local stone as that of the shaft fragment, Bingley 1, which while not exactly the same nor obviously by the same hand, also has irregular decoration very clumsily executed.

The problems involved in defining the function of this piece are fully discussed in Chap. IV, p. 43. It clearly has a bowl or socket, and the decoration though crude shows clearly that it has not been cut down from alarger monument. In the absence of a legible inscription, it may be impossible to come to a firm conclusion, but on balance that it was a font seems the most probable of the possible functions suggested for it.

Tenth to eleventh century

Stephens 1866–7, 486; Haigh 1869–70, 205–8, and fig.; Haigh 1873, 254–5, fig. 1; Whitaker 1878, 192–3; Stephens 1884a, 194–9, 367, figs. on 196, 198, 199; Stephens 1884b, 137–9, and figs.; Allen and Browne 1885, 353; Allen 1888, 165– 6, 173n; Frank 1888, 41–2; Allen 1890, 294, 297, 298; Allen 1891, 157–8, no. 1; Stephens 1894, 17; Viëtor 1895, 20–1, pl. VI, fig. 15; Speight 1898, 149–53, pl. facing 150;(–––) 1899, 64, pl. on 62; Chadwick, H. 1901, 82; Fryer 1903, 19–22, figs. 1–4; Speight 1903, 64; Bond 1908, 107, 127, 129, 131, 153, pls. on 130; Morris 1911, 46–7, 67, 107, 549; Collingwood 1912, 128; Collingwood 1915a, 141–4, 269–70, 274, 287, 290, figs. on 142; Collingwood 1915b, 334; Morris 1923, 107; Collingwood 1927, 66–7, 68, fig. 86; Arntz 1938, 89; Mee 1941, 55; Rice 1952, 147–8; Derolez 1954, 50; Pevsner 1959, 102; Marquardt 1961, 26; Page 1969, 31, 34; Page 1973, 31, 134–5, 217; Bailey 1980, 26, 52; Faull 1981, 212; Ryder 1993, 142; Page 1995, 163, 165; Page 1999, 32, 130–1, 228; Cramp 2006a, 226

[1] The following are general references to the Bingley stones: Allen 1890, 293; MacMichael 1906, 359; Faull 1981, 212, 218.