Part 5

The churchyard cross at Dorchester, Oxfordshire (Fig. 65), had lost its original head by the time that Buckler made his sketch in 1813. According to him, the lower step was 6 in. high, and the next one above it 10 in. high. The socket was 1 ft. 7 in. square on plan, by 1 ft. 6 in. high; the shaft being a monolith 8 ft. 6½ in. high from socket to head. As to the socket, the transition from square to octagon, by means of stops, is very effective. The cross has since suffered drastic "restoration." The treatment of the stops on the socket may be compared with that at Keyingham, Yorkshire (Fig. 64), and Headington, Oxfordshire (Fig. 69).

The Whitefriars' cross (Figs. 72 and 73), so-called, about a mile from Hereford, is believed to have been built, shortly after the great plague at Hereford in the fourteenth century, by Lewis Charlton, Bishop from 1361 to 1369. On the summit of a lofty flight of seven steps rises a high pedestal, hexagonal on plan, each side of which has a sunk panel, sculptured with a shield charged with a lion rampant. The cornice is embattled, and the whole was crowned with a moulded socket. Such was the state of the monument in 1806, the shaft and cross-head having completely disappeared, thereby reducing the total height to some 15 ft. A new shaft and cross, disproportionately large, were "restored" by the year 1875. The peculiar feature of this cross is the lofty pedestal, which scarcely has any parallel, with the exception of the crosses of Helpston, in Northamptonshire, and of Aylburton and Clearwell, both in Gloucestershire.

As to the shaft, whether it be cylindrical, clustered, square, or octagonal, it usually tapers, but is very seldom ornamented, beyond having a stop near the foot of each alternate cant in an octagonal stem. A few crosses may now be described, illustrating different treatments of the shaft.

The cross in the churchyard at Rocester, Staffordshire (Figs. 47 and 48), has three steps, each 6 in. high. The socket is 2 ft. 4 in. high, and the tapering stem, which is 1 ft. square over all at the bottom, is 11 ft. 9 in. high, exclusive of the capital. The stem, in the form of four keel-moulded shafts, with a vertical strip of dog-tooth ornament between them, must be of early date, possibly as early as 1230.

The socket of the Great Grimsby churchyard cross (Fig. 49) may be earlier still, although the stem or shaft itself might be somewhat later, perhaps about the middle of the thirteenth century. On plan the stem consists of four engaged shafts, each with a keel-mould on its outermost projection. The step is 3 ft. 8 in. square by 9 in. high. Next is a socket, 2 ft. 7 in. square on plan, consisting of two stages, the lower having a trefoiled arcade on each of its four sides, the upper one octagonal, with mouldings. The shaft is 6 ft. 2 in. high, including the capital. The total height is 10 ft. 3 in.

The village cross at Harringworth, Northamptonshire, has, not unlike the last example, a shaft composed of a cluster of eight engaged columns. It is apparently of late thirteenth-century date.

Two Oxfordshire examples, both of about the same date, 1290, viz., the churchyard cross at Yarnton (Figs. 51 and 52) and the market cross at Eynsham (Fig. 50), are adorned with sculpture, notably with canopied figures in low relief surrounding the foot of the shaft. Both shafts are much weather-worn, and that of Yarnton has lost its upper half, but the design of the two crosses appears to have been very similar. Yarnton cross stands upon two circular steps, the lower one of which has a diameter of about 6 ft. 9 in. or 7 ft. The socket has a circular plinth cut out of the same block of stone, and is on plan a quatrefoil of four circles, with the corners of a smaller square occupying the inner angles. The moulded capping is also cut in the same block. On each of the four semicircular faces is a niche incised with a figure in armour, kneeling, except on the eastern face, which exhibits a figure reclining somewhat in the familiar "Dying Gaul" attitude. The figure on the south face has a shield on the left arm. The bottom of the shaft is square on plan, with beaded angles, while the other part is on plan a circle, surrounded by four smaller engaged circles, or segments of circles. The figures round the shaft are four saints, now too much worn to be identified, under steep gables, with crockets. The cross at Eynsham differs from that at Yarnton more in the socket than in any other part. The Eynsham socket is a square block, with a figure sculptured at each angle, and gabled panels between. The upper part of the shaft is complete, and shows what must have been the form of the portion now wanting from Yarnton cross.

Another instance of an ornamented shaft is that of Mitchel Troy (Fig. 57). There the stem, a monolith of reddish sandstone, about 1 ft. by 8 in. on plan at the foot, tapers to about half the above dimensions at the point where it is broken off, at a height of about 11 ft. The angles are chamfered, and the chamfers are ornamented with ball-flowers alternating with shields, sixteen ball-flowers on each chamfer. The date of this cross is the fourteenth century. Two Northamptonshire crosses, those of Higham Ferrers (_c._ 1320) and Irthlingborough (_c._ 1280) respectively (Figs. 55 and 56), are ornamented with sculptured decorations throughout the whole height of the shaft. At Ashton-under-Hill, Gloucestershire, the face of the shaft of the cross, about a third of the distance up from the bottom, is ornamented with a scutcheon. A certain number of Somersetshire crosses has a figure under a niche on one side of the shaft. In cases where, as at Burton St David, Broadway, Holford, Montacute, and Wiveliscombe, the niche and figure are sunk into the body of the monolith itself, there can scarcely be any objection to the device. But where, on the contrary, the statue, set on a bracket, stands prominently forward beyond the face of the shaft, the effect is anything but happy. For then the shaft looks so weighted down in one direction as almost to overbalance. The crosses at Bishop's Lydeard (Fig. 20) and Crowcombe (Fig. 118) are particularly exaggerated instances in point; others only less marked being the crosses at Drayton (Fig. 54), Fitzhead, Heathfield, Hinton St George, and Horsington (Fig. 53). But this peculiarity is not confined to Somersetshire. Thus, at Stalbridge, Dorsetshire (Fig. 58), a conspicuous statue and niche occur on one side of the shaft, while at Bradford Abbas, in the same county, the churchyard cross, though much decayed, affords unmistakable traces of having had a statue sculptured on each of the four sides of the shaft. A similar arrangement is to be found in Langley Abbey cross, Norfolk.

The knop, though richly sculptured, is rarely the pronounced and distinctive feature that it is at Maughold (Figs. 86, 87), St Donat's (Figs. 108, 109), and Sherburn-in-Elmet (Fig. 113), or in the so-called Ravenspurne cross, a monument now standing at Hedon, Yorkshire (Fig. 79). The chamfers of its shaft have traces of figures about midway, and the head is large and imposing, but too ill-defined for the subject to be identified. It has, however, been described as having "curious sculptured emblems of our Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary." The cross is said to have been erected to commemorate the landing of Henry IV. in 1399 at Ravenspur, near Spurn Head, in the East Riding. Edward IV. also landed there in 1471. Ravenspur was a well-known seaport in former times, but its site is now completely submerged. The cross stood on the seashore at Kilnsea until 1818, when it was removed further inland, for safety from the encroaching sea. It was eventually set up in the town of Hedon.

Usually the knop is reduced to a mere bead, or at any rate is nothing more prominent than the expanding cove beneath the actual head, as at Ampney Crucis, Derwen, and in the two crosses at Cricklade. A factor of immense importance in preserving the organic coherence between shaft and head (wherever the latter takes the form of a cross) is that the lines of the shaft below the knop and of the lower limb of the cross above the knop, should be absolutely continuous, as though passing through, but not interrupted by, the knop. This requisite is satisfactorily exemplified by two very fine Lincolnshire specimens, viz., the well proportioned cross at Somersby (Fig. 81), and one, now at Keyingham, Yorkshire (Fig. 80), known, from the name of him who set it up there, as the Owst cross, since the exact place from which it originally came in Lincolnshire has not been recorded. In both these instances, the handsome knop, moulded and embattled, is but a surrounding band or ring, which occasions no sort of break in the composition, nor interferes at all with the even trend of its upward lines. At Somersby the motif of the crenellated knop is admirably followed up in the battlements of the gabled roof over the head of the crucifix. The shaft is octagonal, and the cross stands altogether 15 ft. high.

The crown and glory of the cross is the head, and it was upon this that the choicest art of the sculptor was lavished; and it is instructive to trace the development from the rudimentary crudities of the thirteenth to the perfect maturity of the late-fifteenth century.

In pulling down an old barn in the village of Rothersthorp, Northamptonshire, in 1869, there was found the head of a cross (Fig. 46), which was placed in the parish church in about 1890. The stone is 2 ft. 9 in. high by 1 ft. 3 in. wide. The crucifix, which is surrounded by a ring, springs from a mass of thirteenth-century foliage, the capital beneath being surrounded with a belt of foliage of similar kind.

At Halesowen, Worcestershire (Fig. 82), in or about 1915, there was found, built into the walls of a cottage, the sculptured head of a cross, which may date as far back as 1300 to 1320. It is of red sandstone, and much weatherworn, besides the deliberate defacement which it has undergone. On plan it is an oblong square, 10 in. by 6 in., the extreme height being 1 ft. 7½ in. On one side is a crucifixion without attendant figures; and, on the opposite side, the Blessed Virgin enthroned, holding her Divine Son on one arm and an apple in the other hand. The ends of the cross-head contain unidentified figures, one a female saint, conjectured to be St Agatha, the other an ecclesiastic, vested in amice and chasuble, and holding his crosier in his left hand. That which he wears on his head is broken, but it looks more like a tiara than a mitre. This cross-head is a peculiarly interesting example, not only because of its early date, but also because its existence is hardly known.

The cross-head found among the ruins of Croxden Abbey, Staffordshire (Fig. 88), and sketched by Buckler in the first half of the nineteenth century, is of a somewhat unusual type for its purpose, with handsome crocketing. The Christ has the feet crossed and fastened with a single nail in the newer fashion, though the arms are, in the ancient mode, perfectly horizontal. The work dates probably from the closing years of the fourteenth century.

How widely individual treatment might vary within a comparatively short space of time is illustrated by the fragments of the cross-head, found built into the east gable of North Hinksey church, in Berkshire, near Oxford (Figs. 83, 84, and 85). The cross is of rich floriation, overlaid upon which is a perfectly plain narrow cross, bearing the image of the Crucified, Whose feet are crossed, as at Croxden; while, on the contrary, the arms and hands are dragged upward in the fashion that prevailed at a much later period. This cross-head belongs to about the middle of the fourteenth century. The shaft and steps still stand in the churchyard, to the south of the chancel. The shaft is fractured at a height of 8 ft. 9 in. from the socket; the total height, including socket and steps, is 13 ft. 8 in.

At Bleadon, Somersetshire, "a few years ago," wrote C. Pooley in 1877, during the restoration of the church, in removing the plaster, there was found embedded in a recess in the east wall of the porch, the sculptured stone head of a cross of the time of Edward III. (Fig. 89). The side exposed, the reverse, portrays the Blessed Virgin and Child between two donors, a man and woman, kneeling. The remarkable feature of this cross-head is the gilding and polychrome decoration, of which considerable traces had survived. The crucifix, on the obverse, being turned inward to the wall, is hidden from view; but, since this particular cross belongs to the same group as those, for example, of Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Stringston, and Wedmore, in the same county, in which the upper part of the figure-sculpture is pierced through from front to back, the arms and upper limb of the cross remain clearly visible from the reverse side.

In the churchyard of Newmarket, Flintshire (Figs. 90, 91), stands a remarkable cross, with octagonal socket and shaft, both having diamond-pointed stops. The shaft is 6 ft. 5 in. high, and surmounted with a massive capital or knop. The head is tabernacled on all four faces, but its end niches are empty. The niches of the obverse and reverse have each a crucifixion, the one unaccompanied, the other between Mary and John. This curious anomaly of a double yet divergent representation in one and the same cross-head occurs also at Mitton, Yorkshire. The cross-head at Newmarket measures 3 ft. 6 in. wide at its widest, by 1 ft. 6 in. from front to back. The date of the work is about the middle of the fourteenth century.

At Maughold, Isle of Man (Figs. 86, 87), just outside the churchyard gate, and at a distance of about 90 ft. from the north-west angle of the church, stands a cross of very remarkable design, quite unlike the distinctive Manxland type. It is, in fact, of middle-Gothic, belonging, to all appearance, with its blunt cusps and its turgid crockets and finial, to the approximate period of 1330 to 1340. Some authorities, however, assign it to a date some hundred years or more later. The head and knop are in two pieces, which, being of St Bees sandstone, a material foreign to the island, must have been imported thither, perhaps already carved complete, ready for fixing. The knop is square, measuring 14 in. every way. The head is 2 ft. 7 in. high, by 18 in. wide at the widest part, by 8 in. thick. Both head and shaft are tenoned into the knop. The shaft, 5 ft. 1 in. high, is octagonal throughout the greatest extent of its length, but the alternate sides have stops, so that the shaft is actually square on plan at top and bottom. The head is of most unusual shape, the principal panel on either side presenting a sort of rough resemblance to a pointed spade; and containing, on the west, a Madonna and Child, and, on the east, a crucifixion, with the arms spread out quite horizontally, after the manner of earlier tradition. On the knop, under the crucifix, is a heater-shaped shield, bearing, alone of the six shields in the composition, a heraldic charge, viz., the Three Legs of Man (only reversed), with huge rowels to the spurs. The shield on the knop beneath the Madonna has a rose encircled by a ring, which has a bezel in the form of a cross. The north side has, at the top, a shield with a double rose. Lower down, on the same edge of the head, are rude representations of oak leaves, pointing downward; and below, on the knop, is a shield with a chalice, which has the invected foot with points, characteristic of the fourteenth century. The shield at the top of the south edge is per fess, a bud or flower with two wavy leaves on either hand; while underneath are three oak leaves on the shield itself, and one below the shield. Beneath the last-named leaf is a sunk panel with the representation of a warrior on his knees (no doubt the donor), turning, with hands upraised, toward the Madonna in the adjoining panel. On the knop, below the kneeling figure, is a shield with an unidentified charge, a square object entirely composed of vertical flutings, above an oak leaf. The top surface of the head is almost flat, and appears to have borne a capstone, the dowel holes for attaching which yet remain. The shaft is let into a plain square socket. The cross, though weathered, is in wonderful preservation, and is now protected by an iron railing. It is not known ever to have stood on any other than the present site.

At Wheston, a hamlet in Tideswell, Derbyshire, is a roadside cross of stone, of the late-fourteenth century, with octagonal, tapering shaft, culminating in a cusped rood, the uppermost limb of which is appreciably shorter than the arms (Figs. 92, 93). On the obverse is a crucifix with the arms horizontally outstretched. The figure is bared to the waist, but the remainder of the body downwards is missing. On the reverse is a Virgin and Child, a Gothic rosette being sculptured near the end of each limb of the cross. The figure-sculpture is coarse and primitive. The shaft is mounted on four steps, the topmost one of which forms the socket, and, by means of diamond stops, assumes an octagonal plan.

The cross in the churchyard at Lanteglos juxta Fowey, Cornwall (Figs. 94, 95), was discovered, about the year 1850, "buried deeply in the trench which runs round the wall of the church." After having lain prostrate for two or three years more, it was at last raised and placed erect, with a disused millstone for base, near the church porch. It is of granite, encrusted with lichen. The shaft, 8 ft. high, is octagonal, and tapers slightly from 14 in. at greatest width across the bottom; the four alternate sides being sculptured with sunk panelling, wheels, and rosettes of Gothic character. The head, about 2 ft. high, is an oblong square on plan. The widest sides have double canopies, with the Crucifixion, unattended, on the north, and the Blessed Virgin and Child on the south. The ends, being narrower, have each a single canopy, enshrining an unidentified figure. Mr J. T. Blight supposed them to represent Saints Peter and Paul; but Mr F. T. S. Houghton believes that one of the two is meant for St Tecla. So far as one may venture to judge from the extremely rude and unskilled figure-sculpture, the work seems to be of the late-fourteenth century. The above cross is typical of a certain number of Cornish crosses belonging to the matured mediæval period, in which the head is set direct on to the shaft, without intervening neck, or knop. Besides this feature there should be noted another characteristic in the crosses, for instance, at Callington, St Ives (Fig. 96), and Mawgan-in-Pyder (Figs. 106, 107), to wit their disproportionately thick and sturdy stem, as contrasted with the moderate size of the head.

At St Ives the cross-head was unearthed in the churchyard in 1832, and re-erected on a new base in 1852. The height of the cross, as now standing, is 10 ft. 6 in. The reverse of the sculptured head portrays the Madonna and Child, with a kneeling figure, most likely meant for the donor. The obverse is remarkable because the Crucifixion is introduced not, so to speak, _per se_, but rather incidentally, as constituting part of the Holy Trinity group. The crucified Son, then, is placed between the knees of the Eternal Father, Whose hands upraised on either side, the right in benediction, may be observed above the arms of the crucifix. All and any representations of this nature, depicting the Trinity, were peculiarly obnoxious to the reformers, and are yet commonly objected to as being "anthropomorphic." Similar representations of the Trinity occur on one side of the cross-head, with the Crucifixion on the other side, at Cogenhoe, in Northamptonshire, and Pocklington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire (Figs. 114, 115). There is also a Trinity in the head of the cross at Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire.

The same subject again is sculptured in the head of another Cornish cross, that in Mawgan-in-Pyder churchyard (Figs. 106, 107). It is made of Catacluse stone, and is a late-Gothic example, with very rich tabernacle-work in the head. In fact, it was singled out by the late J. T. Blight as "the most elaborate specimen of the kind in Cornwall." On the opposite side to the Trinity is a subject of uncertain identity, most likely the Annunciation. A single figure, vested in pontificals, occupies either end of the head. The shaft is hexagonal, with diamond-pointed stops, now much overgrown and practically hidden from view. It stands 5 ft. 2 in. high.

At Ampney Crucis, Gloucestershire (Figs. 97, 98, 99), the churchyard cross was overthrown at some unknown period. In January 1854 the head of it was discovered, built up amid a heap of rubbish in the cavity of the rood-staircase. Taken thence, it was reinstated in its proper place in the churchyard about 1860. There are two stone steps, which measure respectively 7 ft. 6 in. and 5 ft. square, and an octagonal socket. The shaft is square on plan, changing, by means of stops, into an octagon. The stops, however, instead of terminating in diamond-points, or otherwise dying away into the chamfer, are crowned with engaged pinnacles, extending some way up the canted sides, a most unusual and charming device. It is a misfortune that the effect of this fine cross is spoilt by the faulty, modern treatment of the upper portion of the stem, which, being made too short, is obliged to contract much too abruptly to the junction with the head. Instead of tapering truly, with a series of straight lines converging gradually upward, the shaft is pared away in a concave outline, which results in very serious disfigurement. The total height is only about 10 ft. The head is in excellent preservation, and, though not elaborate, an exceedingly beautiful specimen. It is an oblong square on plan, and thus has two wide sides (occupied respectively by the Blessed Virgin and Child, and by the Crucifixion between Mary and John) and two narrow ends (one occupied by an unidentified ecclesiastic, the other by an unidentified warrior). The canopies are severely plain, being no more than cusped trefoils; while the top is coped in the shape of a gabled roof. The work is of the latter part of the fourteenth century.