As West Kirby 1

Found in 1893 in part of the graveyard recently added to the churchyard at the west side, five or six feet below the surface in made ground 'thrown into a hollow on the original surface' (Cox, E. 1893). Allen's claim that it was found in a grave is probably an error (Allen 1894, 29; id. 1895, 167).

St Bridget

Only two adjacent faces survive with any carving. There is no trace of cabling to the moulding on face A, nor is there any trace of knotwork on a third face of the stone, though both of these features were recorded by Cox (1893).

A (side): The termination of a vertical panel of four-strand plait or knotwork is surrounded to the left and above by a plain flat border, and to the right by a broader flat-band moulding. Running into this panel in the upper left is a narrow horizontal band of step pattern bordered laterally by a plain border. These two decorative panels seem to frame a central sunken panel.

E (top): Set at a slight angle to face A and separated from it by a rather flat moulding border, is the sloping top of the slab. The remains of a panel carry incised diamond shapes.

Collingwood's discussion of this piece argued that it was part of a cross-shaft with a deeply-cut framed panel on face A (Collingwood 1928, 17); Nunnington 1 in Yorkshire would provide a parallel for the elaborate framing he seems to have envisaged (Lang 1991, ill. 699). Given the angle between the two surviving faces, however, the fragment restores best as a coped slab (or possibly even a hogback) with flanking side-panel on the vertical 'wall' and a low-pitched roof, whose tegulation is represented by diamond shapes like that used on the roof of the hogback Gosforth 5 (Bailey and Cramp 1988, ill. 328). This roof decoration finds other Viking-age — or perhaps later — parallels at Birstall, Yorkshire, and Kirkclaugh in south-west Scotland (Collingwood 1915, 145, fig. d; id. 1927a, fig. 226). The step pattern, like the meander pattern which Collingwood (1928) erroneously drew in this position, is an indicator of a Viking-age carving (Bailey 1980, 72).

If this is a hogback then it adds a fifth to the examples attested elsewhere in the region. Its low-pitched roof would be paralleled in the examples at Lythe or among the Scottish material which Lang classified as derivative/associated monuments (Lang 1974a; id. 2001).

Tenth or eleventh century

Allen 1894, 29–30; Allen 1895, 167, 174; Cox, E. 1893; Collingwood 1928, 17, fig. 4; Bu'lock 1959, 11; Edwards, B. 1992, 59

[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).