Blackden, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire (SJ 789707); in private possession

The shaft was brought to Heaton, Staffordshire, from an unknown location before the Second World War, and moved to its present position in 1966 where it has been set on a modern plinth (Hill and Seddon 1998). Its Heaton site is marked at a point c. 1.25 miles (2 km) north-west of Swythamley Hall on a 1991 map published by Tringham (1996, 188).

Only part of the rectangular section survives above the horizontal moulding. The west face carries several lead-filled holes, whilst the east face has a deep slot cut into it which reaches two-thirds of the way down the shaft. Photographs taken at the time of its removal from Heaton show an iron peg fixed in the base (Hill and Seddon 1998).

Round-shaft, type g/h, with single encircling moulding and swags to the moulding borders on the rectangular part of the carving. There are possible traces of vertical relief ornament on the cylinder, and more certain traces of a lightly-carved horizontal spiral-scroll encircling the shaft immediately below the fillet. Shoots emerging from the centre of the spiral pass over and under the main stem in a downward direction. Trumpet forms, or possibly a double leaf, spring upwards from the junction of main and spiralling stems.

Appendix J item (stones associated with Cheshire whose original location probably or certainly lies outside the county) [1]

Round-shaft (see Chapter V, p. 33). Typically for the Cheshire round-shafts this carving does not appear to have a provenance in a church or churchyard. Heaton is close to the border of Staffordshire and Cheshire and this cross may originally have formed a boundary-marker. The rectangular sections appear to be unornamented but there is clear scroll ornament running horizontally round the cylinder under the moulded fillet. In this respect it resembles round-shafts at Wincle Grange 1 and Ilam (Ills. 366–9; Brown, G. 1937, pl. C). The combination of single fillet and (apparently) blank panels above recurs among the group at Upton 1, Wincle Grange 1 and Bakewell (Ills. 343–4, 366–71; Browne 1886b, pl. XIV, 7).

Tenth or eleventh century

Rix 1960, 72; Taylor, H. M. 1966, 10, n. 1; Heath 1970, 6; Tringham 1996, 186; Hill and Seddon 1998, pls. on 145, 146, and figs. on 147, 148; Sharpe 2002, 99

[1] Appendix categories D–H have been used in earlier volumes of this series, particularly Everson and Stocker 1999, 275–329, and Cramp 2006, 245–7.