Possibly in situ. In a fenced-off area by Walton Cross Farm

First noted by Whitaker (1816, I, 305) in its present position. It was reported in the Huddersfield Examiner on 14 September 1867 that the Huddersfield Archaeological and Topographical Association, on a visit led by Fairless Barber, dug to the depth of about a foot around the socket, and found that it was standing on a stone about 50 inches square and 8 inches thick ((–––) 1867, 6). As it was close to the edge of this stone, they believed it had been moved 'no doubt purposely by mischievous persons', and took the opportunity to return it to its original position, using wooden wedges and levers, without causing any damage. The report adds that the society had memoranda claiming that a shaft had been in position in the socket 'less than a hundred years ago'.

Complete, but worn and weathered

A cross-base of rectangular section but not quite squared, so that one side is higher than the other. It has a stepped base and tapers towards the top. The base has four rounded steps and there are four similar mouldings stepped back around the top. The angles are all cable-moulded.

A (broad): The east face is further framed by a flat moulding at the top, and an inner cable-moulding at the sides. Within these are four further frames around all edges. None of these is squared so each one varies in width. (i) The first is a fine close-packed interlace made up of registers of simple pattern F with irregular variations to enable the pattern to turn the corners. The pattern is expanded or contracted to fit the varying width of the frame. (ii) The next inner border is plain and flat. (iii) The next is wider at the top and bottom than at the sides: the top has a tight horizontal four-cord basket plait, the sides a simple twist, and at the base an interlace pattern based on simple pattern F. (iv) The inmost frame is plain and rounded. Within this is a well-controlled bush-scroll springing from a stout stem set on the base of the panel. From this stem springs a double volute on either side, each ending in a tri-lobed flower or fruit, and with a pointed leaf from the node between the two volutes on the left. Above are two pairs of volutes, the pair at the top springing from a triple node. Each volute contains a bird standing on the lower curve of the volute, with its head reaching in front or behind the upper curve. The two lower birds are addorsed and peck at the volute above, the upper two face and reach towards each other and seem to peck at an element developed from the central stem of the plant.

B (narrow): The north face has only a plain flat frame, at the top and sides of the panel within the edge mouldings. This panel is filled with a fine wiry interlace in three sections, not separated by borders, and joined to one of the others by a strand or strands. At the top is horizontally disposed interlace, three registers of simple or closed-circuit pattern F with outside strands. This feeds rather clumsily on the left into a vertical interlace which seems to be based on a single register of half pattern F with outside strands and added diagonals. On the right, the horizontal interlace feeds several strands into another three registers of closed-circuit pattern F which fills two-thirds of the width of the panel.

C (broad): The west face again has only a flat inner moulding along the top and at the sides. Almost at the top and filling two thirds of the face is a circle with a rolled border within which is a pattern composed of four intersecting flattened ovals (like safety pins) which divide the circle into four equal heart-shaped segments, through which is laced a circuit of outward facing loops. The effect is controlled and graceful, with the strand of the linked 'safety pins' swelling in a graceful curve as they turn at the circle edge. A hole has been driven through this pattern in some period of reuse. The spandrels above the circle are filled with ornaments composed of two linked Stafford Knots (simple pattern E) with a loop between them. Below the circle, two confronted winged beasts meet over the stem of a scroll, ending in trefoils, which spreads below them and partly entangles them. Their tails become involved in the plant-scroll, which develops from a stepped base. A second hole is bored between two curves of scroll: these holes look like fastenings for a gatepost.

D (narrow): The south face is more worn than in Collingwood's drawing. Like face B it has a fine wiry interlace, more tangled than on B and spreading over the whole surface, but again based on figure-of-eight knots (closed-circuit pattern F).

E (top): The upper face has a rectangular socket with a flat base, though the edges are damaged. This measures 39 x 28 cm (15.3 x 11 in), and is 27 cm (10.6 in) deep.

Collingwood (1915a, 251–4) thought this could not be earlier than the end of the ninth century, and was possibly as late as the middle of the eleventh. He preferred the earlier end of this range, however, pointing to early parallels for the birds in the bush-scroll, for example, which he related to the eighth-century Ormside bowl (Webster and Backhouse 1991, 173, cat. 134; see Ill. 858) and the fine late eighth- to early ninth-century shaft from Croft, north Yorkshire (Lang 2001, 89–92, no. 1, ills. 147–52). The Croft sculpture is carved in limestone, a very different type of stone, and the Hartshead base is not regularly gridded (unlike that sculpture), and also shows some adaptation to the shape of the stone, which is not perfectly squared. However, if it really is as late as the end of Collingwood's range, it would have to be seen as a rather remarkable revival of early Northumbrian pattern types, based on a fine strand. There are some similarities in its use of a fine wiry interlace to Kirkdale 8A, east Yorkshire (Lang 1991, 162–3, ill. 563), as Collingwood also noted. The interlace on both these pieces also show some irregularities. Adcock (1974, I, 247–9) saw in the Kirkdale slab evidence of a Yorkshire interest in changing patterns (that is patterns which change along a run of interlace), and also of an interest in experimentation, and found some very early eighth-century manuscript parallels. Lang (1991, 163) did not deny its manuscript links, but saw the admitted irregularities as evidence of some degeneracy, and he placed the Kirkdale slab in the early ninth century. I would point to the use of an unusual pattern, the closest analogue to which is on the cast of a missing sculpture, Ilkley 5A (p. 173, Ill. 375), a piece which like the Wakefield cross (p. 267) also shows signs of experimentation, and in both these cases there are signs that the stones were worked over at different periods, using earlier designs. Even though Kendrick (1949, 65) also placed the Hartshead base in his list of 'belated scrolls', there seem a number of reasons for seeing it as very much at the early end of Collingwood's range. See also the discussions of Birstall 1 and Rastrick 1 (pp. 103, 229, Ills. 69–73, 626–30; and Chap. IV, p. 43); and see the discussion of Spofforth 1 for the use of twists and interlace as frames for sculpture panels (p. 250).

Possibly early ninth century

Whitaker 1816, I, 305; Dixon 1848, 63, and fig. facing; Haigh 1856–7, 531; Pettigrew 1864, 311; (–––) 1867, 6; Barber 1871, 2; Hatton and Fox 1880, 120, pl. facing 84; Turner 1883, 100–1, and figs.; Turner 1884, 178; Allen and Browne 1885, 354; Allen 1889, 227; Allen 1890, 293, 295, 299, 300, 301, 306, 307, 308, 309; Allen 1891, 164–5, fig. facing 164; Brooke 1902, 233; Chadwick, S. 1902, 319n; Allen 1903, 218, 300, 306, nos. 562, 782, 804; MacMichael 1905, 122; MacMichael 1906, 361, 366, pl. on 361; Morris 1911, 46, 549; Collingwood 1912, 120, 129, 131; Collingwood 1915a, 183, 250–4, 265, 268, 275, 276, 283, 296, 297, figs. on 252–3; Collingwood 1915b, 334–5; Brøndsted 1924, 49–50, figs. 39–40; Collingwood 1927, 52–3, 175, fig. 65; Collingwood 1929, 37, 40, figs. on 38; Crossley 1929, 113; Collingwood 1932, 53; Elgee and Elgee 1933, 220; Pontefract and Hartley [1936], 12; Brown 1937, 129, 270–1, pl. XCVII; Dauncey 1941, 117; Kendrick 1941a, 18; Mee 1941, 168; Kendrick 1949, 65, fig. 6e; Powell 1956, 373–4; Pevsner 1959, 21, 254; Faull 1981, 210, 219; Cramp 1984, 134, 215; Bailey and Cramp 1988, 117, 161, 164; Ryder 1993, 14; Sidebottom 1994, 91–5, 151–2, 154, 250, and pls.; Tweddle et al. 1995, 24, 266; Adcock 2002, I, 126n; Hawkes 2002a, 132

None