The Corpus: Dewsbury 14

Volume 8: Western Yorkshire

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Current Display: Dewsbury 14, West Riding of Yorkshire

Overview

Object type: Part of cross-base [1]

Measurements: H. 39.3 cm (15.5 in); W. 18.5 cm (7.3 in) (just below pattern); D. 35.5 cm (14 in)

Stone type: Sandstone (pollution blackened), pale yellow, medium to coarse-grained, hard quartz cemented, slightly micaceous. Middle Coal Measures Group, Carboniferous (Local Thornhill Rock?). [G.L.]

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 235-6

Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 146-7

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Present Location

As Dewsbury 4

Evidence for Discovery

See Dewsbury 1-3

Church Dedication

All Saints

Present Condition

Incomplete and battered, but the one surviving fragment of pattern is clear and sharp.

Description

This could be part of a cross-shaft, but the horizontal disposition of the surviving plant-scroll suggests it is rather one corner of a decorated cross-base.

A: This face is edged on the right by a moulding in the form of a series of small baluster shafts standing end on end. Within is a single roll-moulding framing the face at the top and right side and also forming the lower edge of a narrow horizontal panel just below the top. In this panel is one volute, possibly the terminal volute, of a running scroll with a fine modelled stem. The volute ends in a trefoil flower or bud, and small pointed leaves fill the outer corners of the panel and the space below the volute on the left. The surface below this decorated panel is dressed plain.

B: The baluster moulding survives on the left, the rest of this face appears to have been plain.

C and D: Missing

Discussion

It is difficult to form an opinion on such small evidence, but the baluster moulding (not shown by Collingwood 1915a, 170, fig. x) and the fineness of the carving suggest a date in the pre-Viking period. If it is a cross-base, it is one of several decorated cross-bases in the region associated with Dewsbury (see Chap. IV, p. 43). The simplified plant-scroll looks back to earlier work at Dewsbury and is also similar to that on the tomb cover, Dewsbury 15 (Ills. 238–9).

Date

Ninth century

References

Collingwood 1912, 129; Collingwood 1915a, 171, fig. x on 170; Collingwood 1929, 32, fig. x; Sidebottom 1994, 83–5, 247, no. 12, and pls.

Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the Dewsbury stones: Hunter 1834, 149–68; Nichols 1836, 39; Haigh 1857, 155n; Hübner 1876, 63, no. 173; Browne 1885–6, 128; Allen 1889, 129, 213, 217–18, 220, 222; Allen 1890, 293; Fowler 1903, 128; MacMichael 1906, 360–1; Morris 1911, 46, 174–5; Lethaby 1913, 158–9; Collingwood 1915b, 334; Glynne 1917a, 191; Collingwood 1923, 7; Collingwood 1927, 6–7, 33, 74, 109, 116, fig. 13(6); Collingwood 1929, 17, 22, 24, 28–9, 30, 33, fig. on 28; Collingwood 1932, 51, 53; Elgee and Elgee 1933, 196, fig. 36; Mee 1941, 119; Pevsner 1959, 20, 179; Cramp 1978a, 9; Faull 1981, 218; Ryder 1991, 20; Ryder 1993, 18, 149; Sidebottom 1994, 87–8, 156; Page 1995, 298; Lang and Wrathmell 1997, 375; Hadley 2000a, 248; Butler 2006, 93.