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Object type: Plain coffin [1]
Measurements:
Stone type: This is made up of several slabs of rock. Two of the higher blocks on both sides have highly polished surfaces; there are large (up to 2.5 cm) bivalves on the vertical broken edge. Much of the rest of the top surface appears to be composed of closely spaced, but not in contact, gastropods up to 5 mm long, with some scattered bivalves. At the head end, the stone appears to be a poorly sorted calc-arenite with broken bivalve fragments between 0.3 and 2.0 mm across; a few intact bivalves up to 2.6 cm across. Broken surfaces are a greyish yellow-green (5GY 7/2); outside surfaces yellowish grey (5Y 2). Mr Paul Enson of the Natural History Museum and Mr Treleven Haysom suggest (pers. commns.) that this limestone is from the Upper Cypris Clays and Shales at the top of the Peveril Point Member, and more specifically, possibly from the Green Marble. ?Upper Cypris Clays and Shales, Peveril Point Member, Durlston Formation, Purbeck Group, Lower Cretaceous
Plate numbers in printed volume:
Corpus volume reference: Vol 7 p. 130
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Plain coffin of Purbeck marble (believed to be that of King æthelberht, d. 865), discovered c. 1840 below flooring of the ambulatory at the east end (Taylor and Taylor 1965, II, 541; see also Harston (1858) quoted in Gibb with Gem 1975). Date uncertain.
Appendix B item (stones wrongly associated with pre-Conquest period).
