As Hornby 1

Originally found built into Hornby Priory Farm barn (SD 576691), where it was recorded by Taylor in 1903; it was then removed to the church after a visit from Collingwood (Taylor, H. 1903, 103; Collingwood 1904b, 39; Taylor, H. 1906, 395).

St Margaret

Worn on face C

A (broad): The lower part of the head, probably of type C10 with wide curved armpits, retains its roll-moulding borders and is decorated with two rows of horizontal zigzag patterns set one above the other. The lower end has been left uncut. The shaft is flanked laterally by a narrow arched moulding within a double roll-moulding frame and seems to have been decorated with a human figure: a halo, hair and the forehead are all that now survive.

B (narrow): The side of the head carries a series of four parallel mouldings set one above the other, whilst the shaft, flanked by single roll-moulding borders, carries the upper part of a spiral scroll with a central rosette fruit element.

C (broad): The head carries three runs of zigzag pattern comparable to face A but, in the lower part of the face, each triangle is filled with a small pellet. The shaft has a double border as on face A and contains the upper line of an inscription.

Inscription All that can clearly be read of this roman-script inscription, as Okasha (1971, 81) reports, is:

D (narrow): Four horizontal mouldings, set one above the other, survive on the side of the head, whilst there are traces of scroll on the shaft; all is set within single border mouldings.

This stone provides another example of a literate monument in the Lune valley (Chapter IV, p. 20), and in many of its details the ornament is typical of work from the immediate area. Thus the horizontal mouldings on the narrow faces are identical to those on the nearby Gressingham 3; they are also found further down the valley at Lancaster St Mary 2 and Capernwray Hall, as well as on a cross-head from Northallerton (Ills. 439, 441, 473, 475, 570, 572; Lang 2001, ills. 675–6). The head would also plausibly restore as the same E10 type of Gressingham 3 (Ills. 472–5). Haloed or haired figures set under their own arches (distinct from the arris border) occur at Halton and Heysham on work of the pre-Viking period (Ills. 479, 481, 489, 499, 511). The closest parallel for the horizontal zigzag decoration is supplied by a Viking-age shaft from Burton in Kendal, Westmorland (Bailey and Cramp 1988, ills. 191–2), but there the motif is incised and it is perhaps more relevant to note the chevron ornament of Hornby 1 which is filled with pellets, as on face C of this stone (Ills. 549, 554). The rosette fruit cluster is repeated locally at Lancaster (Ills. 571, 573, 575).

Inscription No interpretation suggests itself. Okasha (1971, 81) notes that Collingwood's attempt to read it as an abbreviated form of In nomine Domini 'does not seem very likely'.

Ninth century

Taylor, H. 1903, 103, pl. facing 97; Collingwood 1904b, 39–41, fig. 4; Garstang 1906, 267; Taylor, H. 1906, 395, pl. facing 389; Collingwood 1909, 154; Ditchfield 1909, 119; Farrer and Brownbill 1914, 200; Pevsner 1969b, 16, 146–7; Bu'lock 1970, 292; Okasha 1971, 81, pl. 55; Edwards, B. 1978a, 64; Higgitt 1986b, 130, 147; Bailey and Cramp 1988, 86; Edwards, B. 1988a, 205; Lang 1991, 45, 109, 138; Okasha 1992a, 81; Bailey 1996a, 109; Bailey 1996b, 38, fig. 5; Crosby 1998, 30; Hall et al. 1999, 279; Noble 1999, 35, fig. 49; Bailey 2003, 232; Salter 2005, 44; Coatsworth 2008, 233

[1] The following are unpublished manuscript references to the Hornby stones: BL Add. MS 37550, items 650–62, 688, 692, 696; Manchester Public Library, Hibbert Ware S. MSS: Msf 091 H21, vol. 4, 158.