Volume 6: Northern Yorkshire

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: Aysgarth 01, Yorkshire North Riding Forward button Back button
Overview
Present Location
Evidence for Discovery
Discovered by the son of the Rev. C. N. H. White, c. 1968, in a field wall '110 yards east-south-east of the church' (Ramm 1969)
Church Dedication
St Andrew
Present Condition
Very worn; three limbs survive
Description

From photographs formerly stored at R.C.H.M. York office (now in the National Monuments Record, Swindon).

A (broad) : A free-armed cross of type B9 with wedge-shaped limbs and widely curving arm-pits and straight tips. The modelled edge moulding is almost worn away. In the centre is an eroded boss encircled by a ring in modelled strand. At each side a lateral strand crosses the ring to pass behind the boss. The interlace of the upper limb is barely decipherable, and that of the lateral arms, also much worn, resembles a tangled scroll in its format with deep hole-points. From below, the modelled strands appear to have formed a medallion around the boss.

B (narrow) : Not recorded; probably as face D.

C (broad) : Extremely worn, the plain edge moulding survives only on the right-hand arm-tip. In the centre is a prominent domed boss. The arms are filled with modelled interlace strands with deep hole-points. It is difficult to make out the patterns from the photographs.

D (narrow) : Plain.

Discussion

The modelled interlace strand and free-armed form suggest the Anglian tradition, but its survival into the Anglo-Scandinavian period in Yorkshire allows the date of this cross-head to be quite late. Compare Londesborough 1 (Lang 1991, 179–80, ill. 665).

Date
Ninth to early tenth century
References
Ramm 1969, 238; Hatcher 1990, 14; White 1997, 47
Endnotes
[1] The following is an unpublished manuscript reference to Aysgarth 1: H. G. Ramm. Report on Aysgarth cross-head, December 1968 (R.C.H.M. archive, National Monuments Record, Swindon).

Forward button Back button
mouseover