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Object type: Part of cross-head [1]
Measurements: H. 35.5 cm (14 in); W. 23.5 cm (9.5 in); D. 9 cm (3.5 in)
Stone type: Greyish orange (10YR 7/4), poorly sorted, clast-supported, quartz sandstone. The sub-angular to sub-rounded clasts range from medium-grained (0.3 mm) to granular (2.5 mm), but are mostly medium- to coarse-grained in the range 0.4 to 1.0 mm. ?Ward's Stone Sandstone Formation, Millstone Grit, Carboniferous
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 471-5
Corpus volume reference: Vol 9 p. 176-7
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A (broad): The complete upper arm, together with fragments of the other arms, of a cross-head of type E10 survives. At the centre is a bold circular moulding containing six bosses surrounding a seventh. The upper arm carries, within a framing moulding, rather irregular open and thin-stranded interlace based upon two addorsed Stafford knots (simple pattern E) with angled crossing strands forming two pointed terminals below. Interlace, with pointed terminals, survives fragmentarily in the right arm but has disappeared from the other arms.
B (narrow): In the surviving sections there are parallel horizontal mouldings set within a moulding frame.
C (broad): At the centre is a circular moulding enclosing four linked Stafford knots. The upper arm, within a framing moulding, carries two thin-stranded interlinked Stafford knots with pointed terminals. Fragments of similar decoration survive on both lateral arms.
D (narrow): As face B
Though Collingwood (1927a, 89) classified this head among his penannular group, it lacks the exaggerated fan-like expansion of the arms seen at Tarvin or Cheadle (Ills. 71, 73, 333–4). In many of its details it is linked to other Lune valley carvings of the pre-Viking period. Thus the horizontal mouldings recur close by on Hornby 2 and further down the valley on Lancaster St Mary 2 and Capernwray Hall 1 as well as across the Pennines at Northallerton (Ills. 439, 441, 555–6, 570, 572; Lang 2001, ills. 675–6); the narrow-stranded interlace on open ground re-appears on Lancaster St Mary 1 and Heysham 4 (Ills. 517, 519, 562), and the encircled cluster of seven bosses is used on Heysham 3 and Capernwray (Ills. 434–5, 513). As discussed under Heysham 3, the number of bosses may be symbolically significant (p. 200).
The encircled four-fold Stafford knots at the centre of face C is a composition found across the Pennines on Ripon 2, Hexham 9 and Northallerton 5 — and more distantly on the Ormside bowl — all work of eighth- or ninth-century date (Coatsworth 2008, ill. 637; Cramp 1984, pl. 178.945; Lang 2001, ills. 672–3; Webster and Backhouse 1991, no. 134).
