A (broad): This face is unpanelled, between plain flat mouldings. At the top below the break is a convex curve, possibly indicating the start of a cross-arm with curved end. The area beneath shows a bird on a perch with a tall shaft, which descends into, but is only minimally involved with, an interlace pattern which fills the lower half of the face. The bird has a right-turned head with a large, down-curving beak; a long, thin body with long, thin, humanoid legs and indistinguishable feet; and wings that rise at a sharp angle from the shoulders, then hang on either side of its body, curved edge pressed against its sides. There is no clear indication of a tail, but the double-stranded object on the left, which widens out at the bottom, could be intended to represent a fantail. To the left of the bird's head is a detached element, possibly a plant form with paired leaves and a bud, and there is also some infilling form in the top right corner.

The interlace, though very worn, can be reconstructed to form a register of turned pattern F which divides on either side of the stem of the perch to become simply crossing strands through which loose rings are interlaced (closed-circuit pattern A). One crossing strand from each side joins at the top over the shaft, the outer strand on the left bends round to join the perch, the termination on the right-hand side is not clear.

B (narrow): This face is clearly incomplete on the right but has traces of a rounded edge moulding on the left, and an inner moulding.

C (broad): This has evidently been re-worked on both sections for reuse.

D (narrow): The upper section has the worn remains of an interlace pattern, one register of closed-circuit half pattern D, and the beginnings (above) of a second. The lower section has been completely re-worked, apparently as keying for plaster.

If only the lower part of this shaft had survived, it would probably have been identified as the remains of a Crucifixion scene, comparable to other late Anglian cross-shafts with the crucifixion cross on a tall shaft involved in interlace or other decoration (Coatsworth 1999, 107–8). As the figure is clearly a bird, it has to be compared with other eagle-like birds, with or without an accompanying human figure, of which there are several in Anglian sculpture of all dates, usually identified as the symbol of St John the Evangelist. The bird symbol is found in an arm of the head of the Ruthwell cross (Cramp 1978b, 118; Farrell 1978b, 92; Coatsworth 1999, 108–9). The free-armed cross-head with Evangelist symbols in the arms continued in use in Northumbria throughout the pre-Conquest period, even after the era of Viking settlement. From the seventh to the ninth centuries, for example, they appeared on heads at Auckland St Andrew and Hart, both co. Durham (Cramp 1984, 37–40, 95, pls. 1.1, 3.7, 82.417), and on a fragment at Otley (no. 7, Ills. 597, 600), although in fact the St John symbol has survived on none of these incomplete pieces. It has survived, however, on the upper arm of a late tenth- to early eleventh-century cross-head of Anglian form from Aycliffe, co. Durham, where the bird has displayed wings similar in form to those at East Riddlesden, and fan- like extensions on each side of its legs indicating its tail (Cramp 1984, 45–6, no. 9, pl. 6.23). Its feet too rest on a perch and its head is turned to the left as if pecking at a fruit or flower. Possibly an even more significant parallel is with a group of four cross-heads from the Chapter House at Durham, which are part of a late revival of pre-Viking Anglian iconography and sculptural forms. There an eagle with turned head, down-curving beak, and preened wings, standing on a clearly distinguished perch behind which its tail fans out, is depicted twice. On the one cross-head on which it survives complete there are stylised depictions of the sun and crescent moon framing its head (Coatsworth 1978, 89; Cramp 1984, 68–9, no. 5, pl. 44.206) . The overall iconography of the Durham cross-heads appears to relate to the recent introduction of the words 'Behold the Lamb of God' (from St John's Gospel: John 1, 35) into the Mass, which may account for the prominence of the symbol of St John on at least two of the group. Its enlargement into a major and apparently isolated theme filling one face of a cross-shaft at East Riddlesden appears to be an expression of a tendency which started in the ninth century (see Otley 2, Ills. 568–71) but continued into the eleventh. Indeed, although on the river Aire rather than the Wharfe, East Riddlesden is not far from Otley, so that direct influence from Otley 2 is not impossible.

The loose rings in the interlace of the shaft are usually taken as a sign of lateness, as is the relatively large scale of the interlace (see examples from Hurworth, co. Durham, and Waberthwaite, Cumberland (Cramp 1984, 105–6, no. 2, pl. 89.471–3; Bailey and Cramp 1988, 151, ill. 578)). The arrangement by which interlace patterns appear side by side, separated vertically within a face or panel but linked or even merging with each other above or below is a feature of a number of West Riding sculptures from the late pre-Viking period onwards, as on the cross-base at Hartshead (Ill. 311).