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St Nicholas Description of stone
Event ID 1017218
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017218
St Nicholas’ Church, Holm, Orkney, recumbent cross-slab
Measurements: L 1.42m, W 0.44m tapering to 0.33m at the foot
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: HY 5104 0063
Present location: St Margaret’s Chapel, Graemeshall, Holm.
Evidence for discovery: found in the floor of St Nicholas’ Church during repair work in 1893, and subsequently taken to the new private chapel at Graemeshall.
Present condition: very worn.
Description
The slab has been shaped and carved on one broad face in low relief with a flatband moulding along the edges and an almost central cross. The latter consists of an equal-armed cross-head on a narrow shaft on a square base. The cross is outlined with roll moulding, and the side-arms overlap the edge moulding (there is no bar between the shaft and the base as shown in ECMS). The centre of the cross-head is square, thus forming stepped and closed armpits. It is clear that the cross was entirely filled with various forms of interlace, but the carving inside the upper, left-hand and lower arms, as well as the central panel, is very worn and difficult to make out. The ornament in the right-hand arm consists of a circle interlaced by a four-loop cord, the shaft is filled with triangular interlace enclosing central lozenges and the base with symmetrical triquetra knots in a cruciform pattern.
Date: tenth century.
References: ECMS pt 3, 21-3; RCAHMS 1946, no 359, fig 152; Fisher 2002, 45-7; Scott & Ritchie 2014, no 25.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2017
