The Corpus: West Kirby 03

Volume 9: Cheshire and Lancashire

Select a site alphabetically from the choices shown in the box below. Alternatively, browse sculptural examples using the Forward/Back buttons.

Chapters for this volume, along with copies of original in-text images, are available here.

Current Display: West Kirby 03, Cheshire

Overview

Object type: Part of cross-head [1]

Measurements: H. 20 cm (8 in); W. 19 cm (7.5 in); D. 18 cm (7 in)

Stone type: Pale red (10R 6/2), fine- to coarse-grained (0.2 to 0.6 mm, but mostly medium-grained in the range 0.4 to 0.5 mm), sub-angular to sub-rounded, clast-supported, quartz sandstone. Helsby Sandstone Formation?, Sherwood Sandstone Group, Triassic

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 352-4

Corpus volume reference: Vol 9 p. 134-5

(There may be more views or larger images available for this item. Click on the thumbnail image to view.)

Present Location

As West Kirby 1

Evidence for Discovery

Probably found during demolition of early church in 1869 (Thacker 1987, 289).

Church Dedication

St Bridget

Present Condition

Heavily worn, particularly near the centre of the head

Description

A (broad): The fragment represents the remains of two arms of a circle-headed cross with a boss in the unpierced spandrel. The arms are framed by a moulding and contain fragmentary triquetra. The circle overlaying the arms is defined by an undecorated moulding within framing borders. Any central boss has been chiselled away.

B (narrow): Cut away

C (broad): As face A

D (narrow): The small amount of surviving decoration on the rim of the circle consists of four parallel mouldings within a framing arris moulding; the two outermost of these mouldings are cabled.

Discussion

Circle-head (see Chapter V, p. 31). The decoration on the broad faces, in its combination of unpierced spandrels with armpit bosses, triquetra ornament and a circle decorated with a simple moulding, can be compared, within the group, to the schemes of West Kirby 2 and Whitford in north Wales (Ills. 349–51; Nash-Williams 1950, no. 190, pl. XXXIV). The multiple, and cabled, mouldings on the rim match those on Bromborough 3, and Chester St John 2 (Ills. 36, 38, 82, 84). In contrast both to those examples and other stones within the circle-head group, however, this head is extremely thick.

Date

Tenth or eleventh century

References

Smith, H. E. 1871a, 15, 26, pls. IV, V; Brown, C. 1885, 40; Browne 1887b, 148; Allen 1894, 32a, pl. XVII (17); Allen 1895, 135, 174, fig. on 168; Cox, E. 1895, 241; Collingwood 1926a, 329; Collingwood 1927a, 82, 143; Collingwood 1928a, 15, fig. 3; Bu'lock 1959, 6, 10; Thacker 1987, 279; Gelling 1992, 187; Edwards, B. 1992, 59; Jesch 2000a, 9

Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the West Kirby stones: Smith, H. E. 1870; Smith, H. E. 1871a; Smith, H. E. 1871b, 125–6; Smith, H. E. 1871c; Ormerod 1875–82, II, 486; Brown, C. 1885, 40; Browne 1887b, 146–7, 148; (–) 1888a, 94; Jackson 1889, 37; Allen 1895, 135; Cox, E. 1895, 241; Young 1909, 211; Sylvester and Nulty 1958, 14; Chitty 1978, 8; Randall 1984, 23, pl. 7; Thacker 1987, 279, 289; Austin 1999, 82; Jesch 2000a, 6; Harding 2002, 134–6; Griffiths 2006, 156; Griffiths et al. 2007, 404. The following are unpublished manuscript references: BL Add. MS 37547, items 117–18, 736–40 (Romilly Allen collection).