Now secured to the internal north wall at the east end of the north aisle.

Discovered in the churchyard in 1947, in digging a trench to the south of the church near the Town Beck (Notice in church, and Mason 1996, 8). It was first displayed at the west end of the church, north of the font, in a specially made wooden base secured to the front of a pew, and was moved to its present position in 2004. Two other pieces of early sculpture, both described as 'Norman zigzag work', were apparently found built into the tower walls in 1982 but have since been plastered over again (Faull 1986b, 29–30).

St Peter

Relatively unworn on the faces visible as it is displayed, though there is some damage to B. The concealed face, C, is very worn.

A tapering shaft of slab-like section, with a plain tenon below the decorated area. The vertical edges are framed by broad mouldings, rounded at the angles. The strands of interlace on face D, the least worn of the narrow sides, also appear to have been modelled, and the strand on this face is also narrower than that on B.

A (broad): There are no panel dividers within the face, which is nevertheless divided into zones of decoration. (i) The top is broken but the damaged sides have left a plain triangular area with a circular boss at its apex. There is no clear indication of a cross-head, but it is possible that this is the lower terminal of a 'spine-and-boss' cross motif filling the head, as on Aberford 2. The plain area is bordered by a simple narrow twist, an arc of a circle, very worn, which implies a cross-head with curved (type E) arm ends. (ii) Below is an enigmatic decoration consisting of a downward-pointing triangular but damaged element, which may only be part of the background incompletely dressed back. On either side, two rope-like simple twists descend from the framing twist above: these curve inwards and interlink below the triangular element, as if forming a frame. (iii) Below is a narrow plain area, separating this decoration from a cross of type B6, its arms joined by a ring and with a raised ring at its centre. Two figures below this cross face towards each other and look up at the cross. The figure on the left raises his right arm to the cross, his left arm is raised in front of his body. The figure on the right (who may be intended to be seen from the back) raises his inner arm also. The figures appear to be abraded and would have seemed more deeply cut originally, but they are very simply carved, with little detail and with simple round heads. Both figures are wearing some form of short dress. The area between the figures is slightly damaged, but there does not seem to be anything between them.

B (narrow): Filled with a three-strand twist with two strands joining at the top and bottom, while the third terminates without joining at the top; the bottom is incomplete. The strands are close-packed, broad and flat. The moulding on the right is damaged, and a section of the pattern, on the right near the bottom, has been hacked away but then worn smooth.

C (broad): (i) At the top is a concave moulding probably defining the bottom of the lower arm of the cross-head, an even more worn version of the framing twist in this position on face A. Below this there seems to be an outer border of five or six triangular pendants. (ii) The shaft is filled with three irregular roundels. Elements spring from the top of the upper roundel and the bottom of the lower roundel, and from the sides of all three. It is most probably a form of medallion or lattice scroll, apparently simplified, but the lines of the scroll are curved and not angular.

D (narrow): A three-strand twist or plait like face B, but with a thinner, looser and more rounded strand, and some distortion as it nears the top.

Addingham is potentially a very important site, part of the Otley estate of the archbishops of York, to which Archbishop Wulfhere fled to escape the Vikings in 867 (see Chap. II, p. 19). The north wall of the nave is conceivably pre-Conquest (Ryder 1993, 137). The scene on face A can be compared to that on a round-headed grave-marker from Lindisfarne, no. 37A (Cramp 1984, pl. 201.1132; see Ill. 864), on which a cross with two worshipping figures below has been identified as an image of Doomsday (Coatsworth 1979, I, 44–6; Bailey 1980, 170). There are other elements in the Lindisfarne image, however, which makes this identification more secure: such as the presence of the sun and moon, and the detached hands reaching out from the frame as if to hold or present the cross, and presumably representing the hands of God. The figures at Addingham could be worshipping figures, or even donor figures, as in the eleventh-century Winchester New Minster Liber Vitae, fol. 6r, in which Cnut and his wife ælfgifu/Emma present an altar cross (Backhouse et al. 1984, 78, cat. 62 and pl.)[1]. In the manuscript illumination, however, the theme of the Veneration of the Cross is linked to the theme of Judgment: above the cross, angels point to a mandorla in which Christ sits as Judge of the world and Lawgiver, flanked by Sts Mary and Peter. The element at the top of the Addingham shaft appears to represent something hanging from the cross-head above as if part of its decoration, which would support the theme of the Veneration of the Cross, but a link with the theme of Judgment cannot be ruled out.

The uninhabited crossing medallion scroll on face C is a feature of Anglian art of the pre-Viking period along Wharfedale, where its earliest expression is found on Otley 1 and Ilkley 1 (Ills. 336, 338, 561–3, both also on the Otley estate), and in the Anglo-Scandinavian period on Collingham 3 (Ill. 153), Kirkby Wharfe 2 (Ill. 436) and in a more garbled but still recognisable form on Guiseley 1 (Ill. 308). The Addingham example belongs to a sub-group in which the medallion remains rounded rather than angular (see Chap. V, p. 53). The shaft at Addingham shows a relationship with Anglo-Scandinavian work in the use of plain plaits on the sides, while the figure subject shows evidence of ecclesiastical input, and it and the rounded form of the scroll both show some link with the great Anglian sculptures of the area in the pre-Viking period, not surprising at a site with such well-attested ecclesiastical links.

Late ninth to early tenth century

Pevsner 1959, 72; Bailey 1980, 170, 189, fig. 40; Faull 1986b, 29, 31, 33, 34, 36, pl. IV; Wood, I. 1987, 23, 36; Ryder 1993, 22, 137; Cambridge 1995b, 146; Adams 1996, 153; Mason 1996, 8; Wrathmell 1996, 188; Hadley 2000a, 237, 238

[1] British Library Stowe MS 944.