Derby Museum and Art Gallery

Found during the excavation of the church of St Alkmund which was demolished to construct the Derby ring-road in 1967–8. During excavation, the church was found to have pre-Conquest foundations. Reused in the foundation for the eastern pier of the south arcade (Radford 1976, 32, 47).

St Alkmund

All faces, except that part of the arm nearest the cross-head centre display some decoration, although the two narrow faces are badly damaged and C is particularly weathered. The cross-arm has been broken off and subsequent damage suggests that it was roughly-dressed for reuse as building material.

This stone was once an arm of a cross-head with apparently wedge-shaped terminals. No details of the armpits or central arrangement are present, but it is clear that the terminal of the arm (B) survives as the upper part of this face is decorated.

A (broad): This face, displayed in the same vertical plane as its shaft, is decorated with a three-stranded interlace pattern which is slightly irregular and terminates in a two turned loops with the third strand lacing over the left-hand loop and meeting the inner moulding containing the pattern.

B (narrow): The end of the cross-arm and, therefore, seen from the side of the monument, this face has a broad outer moulding of indeterminate type with a thinner inner (possibly roll) moulding. The area between the outer mouldings is raised and plain.

C (broad): This face is badly weathered but appears to be decorated almost exactly as A, providing the decorative scheme as on the other side of the cross-head. Slight variations in the position of the strands of interlace suggests that no template was used to construct the pattern.

D (narrow): This face is broken, where the arm has been broken off the rest of the cross-head.

E (top): Most of this face has been dressed-off leaving only the small area of double edge moulding where the arm narrows towards the centre of the cross-head. The rest of the field appears to have been a raised plain area between the edge mouldings.

F (bottom): This face has been badly damaged by subsequent dressing and only a fragment of the decoration survives; this appears to be similar to that on B, but is badly weathered and pitted.

This was the arm of a relatively large cross-head, at least 90 cm in diameter when complete, and its decorative scheme, a complex three-stranded interlace, is not uncommon in the Derby area (see e.g. Clipshead 1, Ills. 132-6), although it cannot be related to any of the cross-shafts found at Derby St Alkmund (1–3).

First half of the tenth century

Radford 1976, 32, 34, 41, 45, 47–8, no. 3a, fig. 5, pl. 1(b); Plunkett 1984, 296; Craven and Stanley 1986, 27; Sidebottom 1994, 149, 243–4 (Derby 8)