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Object type: Lower part of shaft [1]
Measurements: H. 52 cm (20.5 in); W. 48 > 39 cm (19 > 15.5 in); D. 16.5 > 15 cm (6.5 > 6 in)
Stone type: Pale brown (5YR 5/2), medium- to coarse-grained (0.3 to 0.6 mm, but mostly medium-grained between 0.4 and 0.5 mm), sub-angular to sub-rounded, clast-supported, quartz sandstone. One rounded black ?chert pebble 1.0 cm across. Chester Pebble Beds Formation?, Sherwood Sandstone Group, Triassic
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 195-9
Corpus volume reference: Vol 9 p. 85-6
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All surviving faces are flanked by a bold cable moulding.
A (broad): Part of one panel survives on this face with a cable-moulding border below. The scene shows the figure of a priest, in full mass vestments, his arms raised in orans position and with feet set at right angles. The face is bearded, with mouth, eyes and nose all clearly delineated. Over his alb is a pointed chasuble with decorative details suggested around the neckline, at the lower edges and centrally down the front. In his right hand he holds a chalice whilst around his left wrist is a maniple with squared terminals.
B (narrow): The sole panel, with no trace of horizontal border, carries a ring-encircled twist with a wide glide between the rings.
C (broad): Little trace of any lower border. Line-incised irregular interlace, with a simple pattern E (Stafford knot) termination at the top and a closed-circuit loop below, onto which are woven two linked outward-facing pattern E knots, with the remains of further strands below.
D (narrow): Step pattern, type 1
Like the other Neston stones, and fragments at Chester and West Kirby, this carving has bold cable-moulding borders. Its Viking-age date is indicated by the patterns on the narrow edges — step pattern and ring-encircled two-strand twist — which are well-known indicators of tenth- or eleventh-century carvings (Bailey 1980, 71–2). The complex and ill-balanced knot on face C does not seem to occur elsewhere on the peninsula, though the broad line-incised strand is known at Chester.
The significant element here is clearly the figure of the priest (Ill. 197) who is shown wearing full mass vestments, in orans position and carrying a chalice with hemispherical bowl, conical foot and knop; the chalice is of typical Insular form (Bailey 1974b, 150–5; Ryan 1990). Depictions of priests had not figured in the pre-Viking period sculptural repertoire (Bailey 1980, 231–2) but in their mass-celebration role they now appear in both tenth-century Yorkshire and in this western region. Winwick 1 in Lancashire provides the most local example (Ills. 708, 715), whilst Nunburnholme 1 shows a priest with chalice and Brompton 3 depicts a priest with the same form of square-ended maniple as occurs at Neston (Lang 1991, ill. 720; id. 2001, ill. 40). The style of figure carving is very close to that of the angel on Neston 2 (Ill. 204), and Allen (1894, pl. XVI) therefore reconstructed them as parts of the same monument. Proportionally and in terms of identical runs of patterns on their narrow edges, this might seem plausible but there are slight geological differences between the two stones, which suggest they are parts of different monuments.
