Walton Description of stone
Event ID 1037100
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1037100
Walton, Fife, carved stone
Measurements: H 0.31m, W 0.31m, D 0.12m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NO c363 098
Present location: uncertain, Crawford Priory now ruinous. Plaster cast of stone in National Museums Scotland (X.IB 175).
Evidence for discovery: found on Walton Farm in the nineteenth century and taken to Crawford Priory. John Abercromby presented the cast to NMAS in April 1894.
Present condition:
Description
This fragment appears to have been trimmed for re-use. It is carved in both incision and relief but the designs are incomplete. Incised is the head of an eagle with typically hooked beak, facing right. Below its beak is a design carved in relief: circular with an inner decorated ring, the outer band is in relief. Thomas likened it to a Donside terret, and Fraser to the head of a tuning fork symbol. The Ordnance Survey recorded that, when the cast of the stone was examined in NMAS in 1971, R B K Stevenson expressed doubts about the authenticity of the original.
Date: seventh century?
References: ECMS pt 3, 344; Thomas 1963, 46, pl 2; Fraser 2008, no 86.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2016.
