In the north transept

Found 'some years before' with Crofton (All Saints) 2 in the foundations of a wall, during ploughing of 'a portion of the land still known as "the Church field", though the fences have been removed' (Fowler 1867–70, 33). A local history of the church says that as there are two possible locations for this field, the site of discovery is unknown (Pacey 1991, 3).

All Saints

Some damage to face C, but otherwise in good condition

Part of the lower arm of a cross-head of type A9, and the top of a rectangular tapering shaft.

A (broad): A roll moulding survives on the right and lower edges of the shaft. A frontal half-length figure stands with his head in the lower arm of the cross-head. His stylised drapery covers his left arm which is placed across his body to hold a slender staff with a small cross-head of type A9 on his right. His hand is large with well-differentiated fingers. The stone is cut further back around his head so that it stands out more.
He has a long oval face and a short slit mouth, modelled eyebrows and nose, and deeply inset eyes. The staff and the cross are incised into the background, even slightly sunken, and it is possible that these and the eyes were filled with some other material, perhaps metal. His hair fits like a skull cap and is edged across his brow with a fine beaded band, representing stylised curls.

B and D (narrow): Edged by narrow roll mouldings, otherwise completely plain.

C (broad): This is more damaged than face A, but clearly shows an incomplete frontal figure, upside down, with his head in the shaft, and his shoulders with stylised drapery in the lower arm of the cross-head. There is a trace of a dished halo on his right, and the edge of his hair also arches over his face on the same side. His features are lost, apart from one inset eye.

It is not clear what would have been at the centre of face A, since the figure of an ecclesiastic, probably a bishop, clearly occupies a place in the lower arm below the centre. There are no exact parallels to this scene, and examples of modelled figures or heads occupying the centre of a cross-head (see the discussion of Low Bentham 1, p. 211 and Ill. 542), and sometimes extending into the lower arm (see the discussions of Cawthorne 1 and 2, pp. 114, 115, Ills. 139, 150), that have been cited in relation to it, do not help to elucidate the programme here. This seems to be the case with an undoubtedly tenth-century ring-head from Bromfield in Cumberland, no. 3. This is badly damaged, but has a modelled figure extending from the lower arm through the centre of the head, identified as a probable mitred bishop for which the undoubted Crofton ecclesiastic has been cited as a possible parallel (Bailey and Cramp 1988, 81, ills. 177–9). However, even if Bromfield 3A is accepted as a bishop, the layout and therefore the full programme of the Crofton head must have been very different.

There is a rather cruder fragment of cross-head from Winston on Tees, co. Durham (Cramp 1984, 145–6, pl. 147.772–5). This has human busts facing the centre in the two surviving arms on one face, with a seated figure also to one side of the centre, and stags on either side of the centre on the opposite face, with another animal more conventionally positioned below. As Cramp noted, this piece stands apart from others in Bernicia in its style of carving. Its pelleted border links it with Anglo-Scandinavian sculptures from Deira such as the York St Mary Castlegate head (Lang 1991, 97–8, no. 3, ills. 302–5, 308), with which indeed it shares some aspects of its layout (see also Bilton in Ainsty 1, p. 96, Ills. 32–4), but its relative crudity also links it with Lang's 'Plait and Pellet' group in York (Lang 1991, 40). Its interest here is Cramp's identification of the figures in the arms as busts of clerics, one with a tonsure and one with a cowl, and the seated figure immediately to one side of the centre also as a probable ecclesiastic. In this case, Cramp tentatively suggested the ecclesiastics as an adaptation of the Scandinavian model with secular figures, here commemorating a deceased ecclesiastic. At Crofton it is as probable that this is part of an iconographic programme including saints who were also bishops.

But what could be on the other face? Collingwood (1912, 129; 1915a, 161–2) suggested a horned figure, upside down, perhaps the devil, but was clearly unsure of this, for in a later work (1927, 52) he wondered if itmight not be the crucifixion of St Peter. There is nothing particularly devilish about the figure, and I cannot identify the features around the head as horns. St Peter is a possibility, and so too would be the angel of the Annunciation.

The fragment is clearly influenced by early Anglian figural styles. It is similar in figural style to the figures with the drilled eyes on the sides of Collingham 1 (Ills. 167, 169), for example, but this has been seen as looking back to even earlier crosses, such as Dewsbury 1–3 and also Masham and Cundall/Aldborough from north Yorkshire (Lang 2001, 93–7, 168–71, ills. 159–94, 597– 631). Like Collingham 1, however, there is also a degree of stylisation. Whether or not it is part of the shaft Crofton 2, as Collingwood also wondered, it seems to belong fully to the pre-Viking period. The head type of the figures, for example, seems clearly to have been influenced by the sculptor of the Easby cross, also north Yorkshire (ibid., 98–102, ills. 193–7), and it is with this work that Crofton 2 below can be compared even more closely.

Eighth to ninth century

Fowler 1867–70, 33–5, pl. on 34; Allen and Browne 1885, 354; Allen 1891, 161, no. 2; Collingwood 1912, 129; Collingwood 1915a, 161–2, 271, 281, figs. a–d on 161; Collingwood 1927, 52, 75, fig. 64a–d; Brown 1937, 143, 248, 249–50, pl. LXXXVII, 3, 5; Mee 1941, 110; Pevsner 1959, 172; Cramp 1967, 31, cat. 57; Cramp 1977, 218; Bailey and Cramp 1988, 81; Pacey 1991, 3, pls. facing 5; Cramp 1992, 201; Sidebottom 1994, 80–3, 241, no. 1, and pls.; Cramp 1999, 9

[1] The following are general references to the Crofton stones: Allen 1890, 293; MacMichael 1906, 360; Collingwood 1915b, 334; Morris 1932, 549, 555; Ryder 1993, 147.