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Object type: Slab
Measurements: H. 55 cm (21.5 in); W. 41 > 39 cm (16 > 15.5 in); D. 6.5+ cm (2.5+ in)
Stone type: Light olive grey (5Y 6/1), hard, fine- (0.1 mm) to medium-grained (0.3 mm), clast-supported, non-calcareous sandstone; grains sub-rounded. Millstone Grit, Carboniferous
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ill. 380
Corpus volume reference: Vol 9 p. 141
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The ornament consists of the remains of the upper parts of two (originally well-modelled) figures, placed side by side and possibly nimbed, whose shoulders and outer arms (?wings) spread beyond the flat trapezoidal base against which they are set; they may have been depicted as wearing short cloaks, though this impression may be the result of later re-cutting or defacing of the figures. Since there is a further plane of carving below the trapezoid background to the figures, the original form of the stone was probably a slab or panel.
Appendix A item (stones dating from Saxo-Norman overlap period or of uncertain date)
The most plausible interpretation of the figures is that they are apostles or angels set in the upper arm of a cross carved on a slab, an iconography seen on the Graiguenamanagh cross in Co. Kilkenny and on other early medieval work (Harbison 1992, ii, fig. 311; Schiller 1972, pls. 331, 376). If these figures are pre-Norman then they show figural sculpture of a size and a modelling which is not found elsewhere in Cheshire. The manner in which their edges are undercut and thus overlap the flat plane on which they are set is also not a feature which is familiar in pre-Norman carving. I therefore follow Baxter (2004c) in attributing this carving to the Norman period.
