Inside the church, lying on the floor of the north aisle.

Noted as built into the west wall of the south porch in 1885 by the Revd G. F. Browne, in the company of the Revd W. Beresford, Sir Thomas Wardle and Charles Lynam (Lynam 1895–7, 292). It was still in the porch wall when noted by Jeavons (1945–6, 118). It is unclear when it was removed and placed in the church.

St Edward the Confessor

This piece is badly damaged with much of it dressed off, seemingly as a result of its reuse as building fabric in the south porch. Decoration survives only, in part, on B and D.

A and C (broad): Dressed-off; no decoration survives.

B (narrow): The surviving decoration appears to comprise a series of almost square motifs which may have been a form of line pattern or, more probably, stylised plant scrolls with leaf motifs in their centres. The patterns have an outer strand, or are contained within a thin moulding, beyond which is a very badly damaged edge moulding.

D (narrow): Decoration survives on only 20% of the stone, on the left, the rest being dressed-off. It appears to be part of an irregular interlace, or possibly a badly executed line pattern, although it is too fragmentary to be certain.

The shaft is too badly damaged to identify the details of its decoration with any certainty. The remains of the pattern on B may resemble the stylised plant-scroll design on Stoke-on-Trent 1C (Ill. 605) where a series of plant motifs are arranged so that they give a sense of a series of square motifs, although equally the design may present a complex version of a linear key pattern like those at Alstonefield (7) and elsewhere at Leek (4) (Ills. 496, 576, 578). However, the fragmentary nature of the decoration makes this uncertain. The remains of interlace or plant scroll on D, are too fragmentary to be diagnostic. Nevertheless, the designs preserve sufficient detail to place them in an Anglo-Scandinavian, tenth-century context, and the monumental dimensions of this piece provide impressive evidence of the presence of at least two large-scale square-shafted crosses at Leek in this period, testifying to the status of the site at the time.

Probably tenth century

Allen and Browne 1885, 356; Lynam 1895–7, 292; Lynam 1896–7, 156; (—) 1914–15, 204; Pape 1930–1, 144; Jeavons 1945–6, 118, pl. XXII.2; Pape 1945–6, 26; Pape 1946–7, 43; Fisher 1968, 67; Plunkett 1984, 301; Sidebottom 1994, 116, 148, 257 (Leek 4); Sidebottom 1999, 212