Unknown. Not found at Granby in May 2008. According to his Rutland Monuments, written in 1819 though it was not published until 1845, the stone was in the possession of Andrew Esdaile of Bingham, watchmaker and local antiquary ([Esdaile] 1845, 50). But relaying the same information in 1851, Esdaile wrote 'I had a Roman altar, which was found in Granby churchyard', rather than, as earlier, 'I have in my possession' (Esdaile 1851, 43; our italics). Since he was accurate about such things, this may imply that the stone left Esdaile's hands — presumably in Bingham — sometime between 1819 and 1851, perhaps between 1845 and 1851, and was lost to view. Certainly in the first decade of the twentieth century, when the entry for the Victoria County History was written, it had 'now disappeared' (Walters 1910, 27).

The antiquary Andrew Esdaile reported that this distinctive stone 'was dug out of the churchyard in the year 1812' (1845, 50; 1851, 43), and this was routinely confirmed by other local historians who had reason to know and trust Esdaile's account (Blagg, T. M. 1897a, 91; id. 1897b, 120; Godfrey 1907, 201–2). Perplexingly, however, the church guide says that it was found in a farm building next to the church. It is improbable, though, that there are two different stones in question here.

All Saints

Unknown

This stone was considered by Esdaile to be a Roman altar, and that no doubt colours his description. The stone 'has rude columns worked on the corners, smooth on the bottom, has never been in any building; in the top it is hollow, the depth and size of a pint basin, to receive some sacrifice offering; the figures on the side are very particular; on what we may call the front, is a Roman figure in bold relief, with helmet on, and a robe hanging behind, from his shoulders, pinned on his breast; his right arm is extended, with his fore finger pointed out, he looks that way; then in his left hand is a sword upright, he appears in the act of advising. On each side of the stone or altar, are hieroglyphics, well cut in bold relief — they are the head of a lamb with the body, wings, and tail of a dragon; and on the back of this stone is a finely cut vegetable figure.'

Appendix C item (lost stones for which no illustration has survived).

Writing the account of Romano-British antiquities for the Victoria County History, Walters was unable to trace and see this stone at first hand, but accepted the view that it was a Roman altar, citing Esdaile's description, Godfrey, and information from du Boulay Hill (Walters 1910, 27). He adds evidence of first- and second-century coins found in the parish. The Nottinghamshire Historic Environment Record categorizes the find in the same way (monument no. L1219); and Patterson too repeats the basic information without querying its identification as Roman (Patterson 2011, 88).

Esdaile was not a conventional, educated and leisured, local gentleman antiquary, but a Scotland-born skilled craftsman and tradesman (p. 2). As T. M. Blagg has emphasized, the strength of his two small books is the detail and directness of his original observation rather than any scholarly pretensions. He was astute and keenly interested in the Roman evidence from his local area of Nottinghamshire and the Vale of Belvoir, and he took the trouble, for example, to visit the British Museum to increase his knowledge of Roman material (Blagg, T. M. 1897a; 1897b).

The stone, if complete as Esdaile seems to assume, was of a size that makes its interpretation as a Roman altar possible, though small; it compares with the example from Ancaster, for example, which has an original circular depression in the top, but with a fully modelled border, typical of the foci of Roman altars (Huskinson 1994, 34). Granby's hollow is not described as possessing a properly defined focus in this way. Furthermore, typically, such altars have undecorated rear faces — as is the case with both extant East Midlands examples (ibid., nos. 69–70) — since they routinely stood against a wall. The 'finely cut vegetable figure' reported as decorating the back might nevertheless have resembled the derived acanthus on the sides of the fine plinth from Lincoln (ibid., no. 3) or on an altar to the Genius Loci from Chester (Henig 2004, no. 7). Classical imagery did not lack hybrid creatures, like sphinxes and chimaeras, that might correspond to the lateral 'hieroglyphics'. And deeply cut human or divine figures are common on the front face of Roman sculptural items, often within architectural frames: does Esdaile's insistence that it was a 'Roman' figure imply classical draperies, a military uniform, or perhaps, rather discretely convey that the figure was naked? Many Roman figures are cloaked. A proper helmet would identify Mars, for whom a sword would be an appropriate accompaniment. If the 'sword' was a misreading of Hercules's club or Mercury's caduceus then the 'helmet' might be a lion's head or a winged cap. Most commonplace of all — and wholly appropriate to the face of an altar — are figures of Fortuna or the Genius Loci, whose characteristic stance holding a single or double cornucopia upright in one hand with the other (right) arm outstretched to hold a patera over an altar, might be read in the terms Esdaile uses. Either can have elaborate hair-dos, but Genii often also exhibit a distinctive mural crown (Corpus of Sculpture of the Roman World, Great Britain, Volume I, Fascicules 1–9).

That said, many details of Esdaile's description might more plausibly be taken to be describing a fragment from an Anglo-Saxon or an Anglo-Scandinavian cross-shaft. With its four angle roll mouldings, the shape of the stone reported by Esdaile makes more sense as a section from a cross-shaft than a Roman altar. Relatively few of the later have a basic structure of this sort. The smooth base could be the result of a shaft having been cut into sections and re-cycled, and the dish cut in the top does not sound like the carefully carved 'focus' of a proper Roman altar and might easily result from re-use, either in church fabric (e.g. as a stoup) or ornamentally. Alternatively it could have been a socket cut for the next stone in a composite shaft, perhaps a cross-head. As described, the standing figure also sounds more likely to be of Anglo-Saxon or — perhaps more likely — Anglo-Scandinavian date. What Esdaile interpreted as his 'helmet' could easily represent the 'hair' or 'halo', so familiar from figure sculpture of the Anglo-Scandinavian period (see entry for Shelford 1 for example, pp. 152–65). The up-raised sword also sounds more like an Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Scandinavian feature. Roman figures rarely hold swords in such a posture, as swords played a different role in Roman culture. Figures on Anglo-Scandinavian shafts frequently wield swords, however and, at a pinch, Esdaile might be describing a figure such as that of Weland on the Leeds cross-shaft (Coatsworth 2008, 198–202, ill. 486). The 'hieroglyphics' on both sides of the shaft also sound like the sort of animal ornament found on early shafts — in this case, apparently with similar creatures on either side. With some licence, for example, one might describe the superb figures on the pre-Viking shaft no. 2 at Otley (Yorkshire West Riding) with similar words to those used by Esdaile (Coatsworth 2008, 219–21, ills. 569, 571), though they could also be loosely applied to animal sculptures much closer to Granby and of later date, such as those on shaft no. 5 from St Alkmund's in Derby (Radford 1976, 48– 51, pls. 6–7). The 'finely cut vegetable figure' on the opposite face to the standing figure sounds very much like a plant-scroll of some sort. As these potential parallels illustrate, it is quite plausible to think that Esdaile had not discovered a Roman altar but a section from a pre-Conquest shaft. It is not really possible, on the basis of Esdaile's description, to propose with any confidence that this monument belonged to the pre-Viking or the Anglo-Scandinavian period, though a monument of the later period is perhaps more likely than an earlier one, simply on historical grounds.

Significantly, the parish of Granby did contain an early, pre-parochial, church site. It lay somewhere in the fields on a route that led from the village to Langar (p. 74 above). It had the unusual, and probably early, dedication to St Æthelburga; but it was more commonly known as the Giselkirk, and Foulds's view is that this name contains a memory of an Old English or Old Norse personal name Gisel, which belonged to the church's original founder. The church, he speculates, originally served a pre-parochial estate in this region, including land in Langar, Bingham and Wiverton (Foulds 1994, 338–9 etc.). Contrariwise, and contra Thoroton, Esdaile thought that the two were separate locations, and reported observing the first ploughing of the close called 'St Aubries' in Langar parish, when human skeletal material brought to the surface confirmed it as a church or chapel site (Esdaile 1851, 44–5). While the graveyard of the parish church of Holy Trinity Granby, or its immediate vicinity, was the location where the stone was found, then, it may not necessarily have been the ultimate origin of the stone reported by Esdaile. Nevertheless, although there might be some context for a pre-Viking church site locally from which this fragment might have come, it makes less of a claim to suggest that it belongs to an Anglo-Scandinavian context.

Whether this item was Roman or Anglo-Saxon, what is abundantly clear is that Nottinghamshire has lost sight of an important fragment of early sculpture from Granby. The circumstances here provide an early illustration of the historic short-sightedness of church authorities permitting antiquarians to take artefacts away from church premises to which they belong or in which they are discovered, no matter how well-intentioned that urge might be.

Pre-Conquest and perhaps Anglo-Scandinavian, rather than Roman?

[Esdaile] 1845, 50; Esdaile 1851, 43; Blagg, T. M. 1897a, 91; Blagg, T. M. 1897b, 120; Godfrey 1907, 201–2; Walters 1910, 27; Patterson 2011, 88; church guide n.d.

[1] The following is an unpublished manuscript reference to Granby 1; Nottinghamshire County Council HER, monument no. L1219.