Cemented to the internal south wall of the tower, on top of Halton (St Wilfrid) 7

First noted in 1887 as built into the west wall of the porch (Browne 1887a, 10). The fragments were set in their present position at some date after 1906; they were originally placed by Calverley against the north wall of the tower in 1890/91 (Calverley 1899a, 190, 197; Taylor, H. 1906, 381).

St Wilfrid

Broken into two near-contiguous fragments, the main face (A) survives in good condition but the arrangement of the scrolls on the lower fragment and the disjunction in the right edge suggests that it has been mounted upside down. The following description of face A assumes that this lower fragment has been reversed from its present position — as indeed it was drawn by Browne (1887a, pl. V, fig. 8). Face C is now inaccessible but was described by Taylor (H. 1906) as being 'rough'; the stone has probably been split vertically at some point. Face B is very worn and face D has been badly damaged in its upper area.

A (broad): On this face the two fragments seem to preserve parts of one incomplete panel, flanked by a double-moulding border. The panel is topped by the continuation of the narrow inner border. Above this is a broader flat horizontal frame, possibly decorated with pellets (or perhaps a worn inscription) and then traces of a second narrow border for a further panel above. The main surviving panel contains a single-stemmed, somewhat angular, spiral scroll which has the distinguishing characteristic that its side shoots emerge from the bottom of the curve on the main stem and then run parallel to it before spiralling away at the top of that curve. At the top of the panel the main stem terminates to the left in a series of waving fronds, ending in fruit pellets; to the right it throws off a spiral with, below, a small triangular drop-leaf with two pellets at its base. To the left, below the fronds, is a spiral, following the curve of the main stem which has a similar, but larger, broad drop-leaf with veins and pellets. The remains of a spiral below on this fragment sprouts an upward-shooting broad-veined leaf with pellets at its base; the point at which this spiral breaks from the main stem has been lost, but its lower part is preserved at the top of the lower fragment where there is a further identical leaf form hanging down from the spiral. One further complete and one partial spiral survive below accompanied by their broad-based veined leaves with pellets at the base; the complete spiral has its full complement of one drop- and one upward-shooting leaf; the partial spiral only has its upward-springing version.

B (narrow): The panel(s) were given double borders as on the main face; both surviving to the left and the inner surviving at the top and to the right. All ornament has been lost from the (present) lower fragment; substantial traces of half pattern A knotwork, executed in line-incised strands, remain on the upper.

C (broad): Lost

D (narrow): All of the decoration on the (present) upper fragment has been lost; below there are possible traces of scroll.

The use of pellets on flat broad borders is typical of Halton work whilst half pattern A interlace is used on nos. 1 and 5. Untypical however is the lack of cabled mouldings.
The main panel on face A has a 'western split-stemmed scroll' characteristic of numerous scrolls in the Lune valley and the north-west (see Chapter IV, p. 20, and Heysham 1, p. 197). Within that group, the termination which involves a spiralling side shoot with drop-leaf in the upper corner of the panel is paralleled on Lancaster St Mary 3 (Ills. 577–80). The waving fronds are a somewhat messier version of the swollen-tipped stems which terminate the scroll on Lancaster 3 (and see Halton St Wilfrid 1). The veined leaf with pelleted base is found again at Gressingham 2 and Heysham 1, as well as Lowther 1 and 2 in Westmorland (Ills. 462, 514–15; Bailey and Cramp 1988, ills. 435, 437–9).
Potts has argued that this stone is part of the same monument as Halton Green 1 (Potts 1982, 18); both certainly have double non-cabled mouldings acting as borders, but the lack of complexity in the foliate forms at Halton Green would argue against this suggestion (Ills. 404–5).

Ninth century

Allen and Browne 1885, 355; Allen 1886, 337; Browne 1887a, 8, pl. V, fig. 8; Calverley 1899a, 197; Taylor, H. 1903, 89; Collingwood 1904a, 332; Taylor, H. 1906, 381; Taylor, H. M. 1970d, 288; Edwards, B. 1978a, 60; Potts 1982, 18–19; Bailey 1994, 117; Lang 2000, figs. 9.9, 9.10

[1] The following are general references to the Halton stones: Allen 1894, 4, 8; Taylor, H. 1898, 42; Ditchfield 1909, 118–19; Curwen 1925, 30; Fellows-Jensen 1985, 402, 405; Noble 1999, 16; Blair 2005, 216, 309, 310, 463; Newman, R. M. 2006, 102. The following are unpublished manuscript references: BL Add. MS 37550, items 602–13, 735; BL Add. MS 37551, items 66–71; Manchester Public Library, Hibbert Ware S. MSS: Msf 091 H21, vol. 5, 38; ibid., vol. 6, 40.