Inside the church by the south porch

Generally thought to have been in the church fabric before the restoration in 1854 and then taken into the Thomas Bateman collection at Lomberdale Hall, Derbyshire, the stone is not included in the catalogue of his collection (Bateman 1861–2). Hanbury (1951, 84) nevertheless records that after the dissolution of the Bateman collection, it was acquired by the owner of The White House, Darley, and presented to the church in c. 1950. It may be that Bateman's reputation for acquiring local antiquities has coloured this tradition (Marsden 2007, 59–61), and that the owner of the White House acquired the stone at the time of the church renovations in 1854.

St Helen

The stone has been badly damaged with D missing where part of the stone has been broken off. There is considerable wear on C, suggesting that it might have been reused as a stair tread or perhaps as a component in a stile. A and B are in reasonably good condition.

Decoration survives only on A and B.

A (broad): The decoration is arranged in two panels divided by a horizontal incised line. That in the upper panel appears to have been a cross with tapering arms, terminating on each side at the edge mouldings and at the lower panel divide; the top is lost to the break in the stone. In the centre of the cross-head there is a circular depression surrounded by a flat moulding, contiguous with four short arms radiating diagonally towards the armpits of the cross articulated by a single moulding. The lower and smaller panel is decorated by another (linear) cross formed by a single moulding; a square, also formed by a single moulding, frames the intersection of the cross.

B (narrow): This face is decorated by a key pattern contained by edge mouldings on each side. The top and bottom are lost in the breaks in the stone.

C (broad): Although badly, worn decoration appears to have been divided into two panels as on A; parts of the left-hand edge moulding and central divider are visible and there appears to be a trace of a lower horizontal moulding.

D (narrow): Broken

This is an unusual piece which, in part, resembles a grave-cover similar to Derby 7 or 8, although the traces of decoration on C suggests that the stone was intended to stand upright and be visible from all sides. The unusual scheme of decoration raises some doubt that this was ever part of a cross-shaft, but as the stone is incomplete and damaged it is not possible to assess its original height. If it comprised no more than the two panels visible on A and C, it may well have been a grave-marker, providing an unusual example of decoration associated with recumbent monuments applied to a freestanding memorial. Nevertheless, although the incised and shallow nature of the carving is different to the higher relief of most of the cross-shafts in the region, there are incised examples elsewhere, at Ecclesfield or Penistone in west Yorkshire, for instance, which have been dated to the eleventh century (Coatsworth 2008, 150-1, 229).

Possibly eleventh century

Hanbury 1951; Pevsner and Williamson 1978, 164; Craven and Stanley 1986, 19, 27; Leonard 1993, 17; Sidebottom 1994, 149, 242 (Darley Dale 2); Sidebottom 1999, 212; Sharpe 2002, 67