Select a site alphabetically from the choices shown in the box below. Alternatively, browse sculptural examples using the Forward/Back buttons.
Chapters for this volume, along with copies of original in-text images, are available here.
Object type: Part of cross-arm [1]
Measurements: H. 22 cm (8.7 in); W. 22.9 cm (9 in); D. 16 cm (6.3 in)
Stone type: Sandstone, clean, reddish brown colour (like no. 6), medium to coarse, quartzose with subordinate feldspar, slightly micaceous. Upper Carboniferous, Millstone Grit Group. [G.L.]
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 597-600
Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 223-4
(There may be more views or larger images available for this item. Click on the thumbnail image to view.)
One end of a cross-arm of type A9 or possibly D9. Damaged roll mouldings survive on all three carved faces.
A (broad): The head of an animal with an eye shaped like a flattened oval starts out from the edge moulding and faces towards the centre of the cross-head. There is a narrow wing rising behind the head. It has blunt jaws, the upper with prominent nostrils. There is some detail around the top of the head, now difficult to interpret. One paw or hoof rests on a book. One of the Evangelist symbols, but it is not clear whether the bull of St Luke or the lion of St Mark.
B (narrow): The end of the arm has a tiny fragment of a bifurcating and tangled plant-scroll, with two slender stems on either side terminating in a pointed leaf with a curling tip and the remains of a leaf-flower at the foot.
C (broad): One volute of a plant-scroll extends into the end of the arm, possibly terminating in a pointed leaf at bottom right, or more probably this is a node of the main stem with a swelling on its edge. Within the volute a bifurcating tendril terminates in one stem with a small pointed bud, and in the other with a large round berry bunch.
D (narrow): Missing
Although not the same stone type, this could be part of the head of the shaft Otley 1. There are similarities in the depth of carving, particularly on face C; and there are strong connections between the plant-scrolls on faces B and C and those on the same sides of the shaft Otley 1 (Ills. 552–4, 561–3). If the figures on face A of Otley 1 are the Evangelists, as I have suggested above (p. 218, Ills. 558–60), it is very probable that the side of the head with Evangelist symbols belongs to this side also. The relationship of these Evangelist symbols with others in Northumbrian sculpture is discussed in Chap. VI (pp. 63–4).
