Volume 7: South West England

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Current Display: West Parley 1, Dorset Forward button Back button
Overview
Present Location
In churchyard, outside west wall of north porch
Evidence for Discovery
None
Church Dedication
All Saints
Present Condition
Slightly weathered, and marked by lichen
Description

A (broad): Only one face is carved, and this shows a long stemmed cross in relief, type B6, set on a rectangular base. The base and the horizontal arms extend the full width of the slab.

B and D (narrow): Both sides are sharply chamfered.

C (broad): Plain

Discussion

Appendix A item (stones dating from Saxo-Norman overlap period or of uncertain date).

Although the shape of the cross is not unknown in pre-Conquest contexts (see Everson and Stocker 1999, ills. 84 and 86), crosses with V-shaped armpits tend to be more common in the late pre- Conquest or early post-Conquest periods (see also Shaftesbury 2–5, Ills. 92–5). The sharply chamfered sides indicate that this could have been a coffin lid, as the Royal Commision inventory suggests. There seems however no clear evidence to support their fourteenth century dating.

Date
Eleventh century(?)
References
Pope 1906, 79; R.C.H.M.(E.) 1975, 75
Endnotes
None

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