The Corpus: Ilkley 06

Volume 8: Western Yorkshire

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Current Display: Ilkley 06, West Riding of Yorkshire

Overview

Object type: Lower part of cross-shaft [1]

Measurements: H. 47 cm (18.5 in); W. (shaft) 24.4 > 24 cm (9.6 > 9.4 in), (tenon) 23.5 cm (9.2 in); D. (shaft) 10.5 cm (4.1 in), (tenon) 9 cm (3.5 in)

Stone type: Sandstone, clean, pale buff-brown colour, medium grained, quartzose with pervasive silica cement giving a dense hard fabric. Upper Carboniferous, Millstone Grit Group. [G.L.]

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 387-90

Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 174-5

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Present Location

As Ilkley 4

Evidence for Discovery

See Ilkley 4. Kept in Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley for some years, until 2006.

Church Dedication

All Saints

Present Condition

Worn and incomplete. Only one carved face survives.

Description

The base of a cross-shaft with a tenon. No edge mouldings survive, and the back and most of the sides are missing.

A (broad): An unusual form of bush-scroll formed from two parallel continuous scrolls with volutes facing alternately right and left. The lower volutes of both scrolls terminate in tri-lobed berry bunches, and tri-lobed buds spring from the plain binding between the lower and upper volutes. Only the lower part of the two upper volutes survives. As these turn inwards they appear to meet edge to edge. The conjunction of the four volutes creates a hollow diamond-shaped space at the centre, with buds, possibly tri-lobed, springing from each angle to form a cross, although this is now very worn. The panel is edged below by a double cable twist and a plain flat band

B and D (narrow) and C (broad): Missing. Hacked and worn.

Discussion

Collingwood (1915a, 197) recognised that the style of carving of this piece is the same as Ilkley 5, and he thought it could be the foot of the same cross. If it is, it must be the base of one of the broad faces. The double cable twist, present on both pieces, suggests the possibility. The place of the bush-scroll and its 'flowering cross' centre in relation to regional styles are discussed in Chap. V, p. 54.

Date

Eighth to ninth century

References

Allen 1884a, 166, 167, 171, fig. D facing 166; Allen and Browne 1885, 353; Collyer and Horsfall Turner 1885, fig. D facing 48; Allen 1890, 296; Allen 1891, 168, no. 6; Collingwood 1912, 129; Collingwood 1915a, 197, fig. p on 195; Smith 1923–4, 240, fig. 11; Collingwood 1927, 37, fig. 49p

Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the Ilkley stones: Camden 1607, 567–8; Gough 1789, III, 239; Whitaker 1812, 217; Hatton and Fox 1880, 12; Browne 1880–4a, lxxiv; (–––) 1882a, 384; Cobley 1882, 127–8; Allen 1883, 53–6; Allen 1884, 158–61; Allen and Browne 1885, 353; Browne 1885c, 157; Allen 1889, 12, 158, 226, 227; Allen 1890, 293, 295; Irvine 1894, 328–9; Bogg 1904, fig. on 31; MacMichael 1906, 362; Collingwood 1915b, 328, 331; Browne 1916, 50; Collingwood 1932, 51, 53; Brown 1937, 213; Pevsner 1959, 20, 277; Taylor, H. M., 1968a, 330; Faull 1981, 218, 219; Faull 1986b, 29, 31, 37–40, pl. IX; Ryder 1991, 30; Ryder 1993, 160; Cambridge 1995b, 146–7; Hadley 2000a, 237, 238; Hawkes 2003a, 81–2; Butler 2006, 93.