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Object type: Lower arm of cross-head and part of -shaft [1]
Measurements: H. 61 cm (24 in); W. 34 cm (13.4 in) (lower edge of panel) > 32.6 cm (12.8 in); D. 17 cm (6.7 in) (lower edge of panel) > 15 cm (5.9 in)
Stone type: Sandstone, buff coloured, fine to medium grained, quartzose and slightly micaceous. Carboniferous sandstone, probably local Pennine Middle Coal Measures Group (Ackton or ?Oak's Rock sandstones). [G.L.]
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 178-82, 185; Figs. 13a, 14n
Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 126-7
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The lower part of a cross-shaft of rectangular section, still with its roughly cut tenon for insertion into a base. All faces are edged with flat mouldings. The carving is deep and confident, with some modelling of the surface.
A (broad): This face has a well -executed pair of confronted animals with slender bodies, horse-like hoofed legs, and heads and long necks which cross so that the head of one rests against the hindquarters of the other. They have long backward-pointing oval eyes, within a forehead of the same shape, and the ear of the head of the creature on the left is the same form, also contoured. Contour lines define the neck and the body, surviving most clearly on the animal on the right, and the necks are cross-hatched within these lines to give the effect of a mane. Median-incised lines and contouring are also evident on the tails and around the hips. The hip joint on the right is shallowly cross-hatched. The tail of each animal passes between its hind legs and behind its body, re-appearing above its back where it ends in a clubbed tip. The overall effect is graceful, light and rhythmic. Below this panel is a broad plain band cut back below the mouldings, which suggests it was originally intended for a (painted?) inscription.
B (narrow): The carved area is edged with a flat moulding below as well as at the sides. It contains a continuous simple plant-scroll of which one and a half sinuous curves remain. The fleshy stem has a splayed root, above which it is split or median-incised with a stem binding for the springing of the second volute. The lowest volute curls back on itself and from its stem and tip throws off two oval, pointed leaves. The second, which is also median-incised, has a fleshy bud and terminates in a pointed leaf on a thin stem. Part of a third volute with the same leaf type is visible above.
C (broad): The carved area has sustained some damage to the bottom left, but otherwise seems to be a near-complete panel of median-incised animal interlace, in which two snakes twine through two registers of turned pattern A with cross-joined terminals. The strands break in the top corners to form the snake-heads of the creatures, biting on their tails, which have the same form as the pointed leaves on the plant-scroll.
D (narrow): A plant-scroll with many of the same features as on face B, of which two volutes survive, both ending in two pointed leaves, one oval, the other heart-shaped. Fleshy scooped leaves or buds spring from the join between tendril and stem to fill the spandrels.
E (top): Two rounded sockets are cut into the upper surface. These may represent seating for a double tenon from the upper part of the shaft, but may alternatively be indicative of recutting for some later reuse.
The closest parallels to this piece, both in animal ornament and in the plant-scroll on its narrow faces, are Hackness 1, in east Yorkshire (Lang 1991, 135–41, ills. 454–63, 466), and the Easby cross (Lang 2001, 98–102, ills. 185–6, 193–212). The plant trail is so close in feeling that it may even be by the sculptor of Easby 1, and it is surely of the same date. See Chap. V, pp. 52 and 57.
