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Object type: Slab / grave-cover
Measurements: H. 32 cm (12.5 in); W. 31 < 33 cm (12.25 < 13 in); D. 11.5 cm (4.5 in)
Stone type: Pale grey (N7), very fine-grained, micritic limestone with no obvious internal structure. There are a few scattered shell fragments up to 2.5 mm across, with one well-preserved pectenid measuring 12 mm. The stone is fairly soft and easily marked. ?Blue Lias Formation, Lias Group, Lower Jurassic
Plate numbers in printed volume: Pls. 370-1
Corpus volume reference: Vol 7 p. 185
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Only one face is carved. The slab is edged by two incised lines to make a double moulding, and at the narrower end a cross with splayed arms, type 6b, is neatly cut with a chisel, and from the tip of one vertical arm spring a pair of coils separated by a wedge-shaped feature in relief. The surface of the background is notably smooth. The sides are roughly pecked back and the back is finished with rough hatching.
Appendix A item (stones dating from Saxo-Norman overlap period or of uncertain date).
This has been considered as an Anglo-Saxon piece (pers. comm. English Heritage, Salisbury). Although at first sight this appears to be a cross emerging from plant coils, if one considers the wider end as the top then one can reconstruct a slab decorated with a cross with sunken centres, the spandrels of the arms filled with oils, and a small cross on the vertical stem. In this case a post-Conquest date is clearly to be preferred. B. and M. Gittos have compared the cross shape here with a simple cross on a long stem on slab no. 6 from Wells, that by context is dated to before c. 1190 (2001, 495, fig. 494), which is consonant with the date proposed for this piece.
