In churchyard, incorporated with Bromborough 1 above

As Bromborough 1 above

St Barnabas

Heavily worn on both main faces

A (broad): Only the transverse arms and part of the upper arm of a circle-head cross, with sunken spandrels, now survive. The circle is decorated with bosses set within a roll-moulding frame. In the left arm is an equal-armed foliate cross, carved in relief and enclosed within a diamond-shaped frame with curving sides. In the right arm are traces of interlace. The upper arm contains a triangle nesting within an inverted V form.

B (narrow): No carving is now visible on the end of the arm, but the circle carries traces of five mouldings running parallel with the arris moulding.

C (broad): The circle was decorated as on face A. The ornament in the arms is very worn but, to the left, seems to have consisted of spiralling forms, whilst to the right there is a serpent-like head, with marked eye, surrounded by pellets.

D (narrow): The arm end carries some traces of a moulded border. The circle is decorated with five mouldings running parallel with the arris mouldings; the central element may be decorated with pellets.

Circle-head (see Chapter V, p. 31). There is no reason to follow Collingwood (1926b; 1928, 15) when he suggested that this stone was carved by an artist who also produced the Cumbrian carvings at Bromfield and Rockcliffe together with the circle-heads at Gargrave in Yorkshire and Penmon in Anglesey (Bailey and Cramp 1988, ills. 178, 539–42; Coatsworth 2008, ills. 289–91; Nash-Williams 1950, no. 38, pl. XXXII).

The head clearly belongs to the circle-headed group and shares certain parts of its decorative repertoire with other members of that set (Chapter V, pp. 31–2). Thus the pelleted circle is found again on Chester St John 4 and 5, Chester City Walls 1 as well as Diserth in north Wales and Gargrave 5 (Ills. 94–5, 97, 112–13; Nash-Williams 1950, no. 185, pl. XXXIII; Coatsworth 2008, 158, ills. 289–90). The multiple mouldings on the rim of the circle recur within the group on Chester St John 2 and West Kirby 3; both of the latter may carry forms of pellets or twist on at least one of their mouldings (Ills. 81–4, 354).

It is, however, distinct from the rest of the set in both its general shape and in other decorative details. Lack of piercing within the spandrels, but without any spandrel bosses, is otherwise not attested within the Cheshire group — though the unfinished head Chester St John 6 and Penmon share this feature at a slight distance (Ills. 100–1; Nash-Williams 1950, no. 38, pl. XXXII). Unique also is the decoration of the arms with cruciform, ?spiral and zoomorphic knotwork ornament; others within the group usually use triquetra or, as at Chester St John 5, three pellets. It should be noted, however, that the related shaft at Diserth in north Wales (Nash-Williams 1950, no. 185, pl. XXXIII) does use a mixture of spiralling, interlace, scroll and (St Andrews) cruciform forms in its somewhat incoherent arm decoration; this might be used as an argument to suggest that Bromborough 1 and 3 were originally part of the same monument (see discussion in Bromborough 1 above).

Tenth or early eleventh century

Allen 1894, 28, pl. XIII (1 and 2); Allen 1895, 165, 174, figs. on 164; Cox, E. 1895, 242; Collingwood 1926a, 329; Collingwood 1926b, 378; Collingwood 1927a, 143; Collingwood 1928, 15; Nash-Williams 1950, 129; Bu'lock 1959, 5, 10; Pevsner and Hubbard 1971, 13, 116; Chitty 1978, 8; Randall 1984, 23, pl. 4; Thacker 1987, 286, fig. 38 (3); Bailey and Cramp 1988, 31; Edwards, B. 1992, 59; Higham, N. 1993b, 132; Bailey 1996b, 30; Austin 1999, 81; Harding 2002, 137, pl. on 136; Bailey 2003, 223

[1] Most of the pre-Norman sculpture from this site has been lost. Its original discovery and subsequent history are recorded in a letter dated 13 May 1936, to the editor of the Bebington News, from Mrs A. Anderson, a copy of which is preserved in the files of the former Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities (now Prehistory and Europe) in the British Museum. This states that the stones were found in 1863 when the church — itself built in 1828 — was demolished; they had apparently been used in its foundations. The carvings were then placed in a pile on the lawn of the Rectory garden. This assemblage, of which photographs survive in the British Museum departmental files (Ills. 43–57), was dispersed in 1909. The transom fragment (Bromborough 3) along with two shaft fragments (no. 1) were then placed on the windowsill in the south porch of the church; a fragment of an 'upright grave cros' was set on the windowsill of the north porch, and the rest were distributed around the walls and rockeries of the Rectory. In May 1933 there was a proposal to develop the Rectory site and the Bromborough Society tried to intervene to save the stones. The Society was rebuffed and the builder who took over the property subsequently claimed not to have recognised any carvings. It was at this stage that most of the sculpture seems to have been destroyed. The later treatment of the surviving stones is described below.

[2] The following are general references to the Bromborough stones: Ormerod 1875–82, III, 899; (–) 1890, 250; Cox, E. 1895, 242–3; Anderson, A. 1934; Sylvester and Nulty 1958, 14; Higham, N. 1993b, 132. The following is an unpublished manuscript reference: BL Add. MS 37547, item 653 (Romilly Allen collection).