The Corpus: Bolton le Moors 2

Volume 9: Cheshire and Lancashire

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Current Display: Bolton le Moors 2, Lancashire

Overview

Object type: Shaft [1]

Measurements: H. 85 cm (33.5 in); W. 33 > 23 cm (13 > 9 in); Circumference 78 cm (30.75 in)

Stone type: Medium grey (N5), medium- to coarse-grained, clast-supported, quartz sandstone. The sub-angular to sub-rounded clasts range from 0.3 to 1.0 mm, but are mostly in the range 0.4 to 0.6 mm; scattered flakes of white mica. Millstone Grit, Carboniferous

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 415-6, 419-20

Corpus volume reference: Vol 9 p. 166

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Present Location

In display in south aisle of church, standing on a (?separate) plinth some 6 cm deep; previously fixed on sill of window in ringing chamber of tower.

Evidence for Discovery

See Bolton le Moors 1 above.

Church Dedication

St Peter

Present Condition

Heavily worn

Description

The stone appears to represent a cylindrical shaft whose lower sections take on a sub-rectangular shape below a 'shoulder'. At the top is the encircling moulding which normally separated the rectangular-shaped upperworks on crosses of type g/h. There is just the possibility that there is some decoration, set under an arched frame, on the lower squared section of faces A and B. Scholes (1892, fig. 5) shows the border mouldings forming this frame as cabled.

Discussion

If this is a round-shaft then it is geographically well removed from the main group (see Chapter V, p. 33, and Fig. 15).

Date

Tenth century

References

(—) 1886c, fig. on 342; Scholes 1892, 83, fig. 5; Taylor, H. 1904, 146; Taylor, H. 1906, 475–6; Edwards, B. 1978a, 56; Noble 2005, 14

Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the Bolton le Moors stones: Langton 1885, 34; Allen 1894, 4, 9, 15, 17, 20. The following are unpublished manuscript references: BL Add. MS 37550, items 580 (showing no. 1), and 583–4 (other fragments 'discovered when the parish church of Bolton was taken down a few years since, from a sketch by John Owen of Kennedy Grove, Stockport who watched the demolition of the church').