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Netherton Description of stone
Event ID 1084273
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1084273
Netherton, Lanarkshire, cross
Measurements: H 2.1m above ground, W across side-arms 0.76m, W of shaft 0.46m, D 0.28m
Stone type: red sandstone
Place of discovery: NS 7271 5674
Present location: outside the main entrance to Hamilton Parish Church.
Evidence for discovery: When Stuart recorded the stone in the mid nineteenth century, it stood in the grounds of Hamilton Palace, only 1.52m in height above ground. It was moved to its present position in 1926 and placed on a modern base.
Present condition: there is considerable damage to all the carved faces, and the stone is very weathered.
Description
The slab has been dressed into the shape of a cross with short side-arms, and it is carved in false relief on all four vertical faces, within plain flat-band mouldings.
On face A, the side-arms are accentuated by being filled with raised triangles, each with incised inner triangles, and the centre of the cross has a raised spiral. The upper arm contains a human figure between two beast-headed bipeds, and below them are perhaps two beasts but they are hard to discern. Below the central spiral on the right is a quadruped, but that on the left is defaced. The shaft is filled with heavy median-incised interlace.
Face C bears a central disc from which pairs of serpents extend out into the side-arms. The upper arm contains a short frontal human figure with arms at the sides. Below the disc the carving is much damaged, but a pair of human legs facing left are visible on the right, and below them an ornamented disc on a long vertical stem.
On narrow face B, a human figure within an arch is carved on the upper arm, a panel of lattice work on the end of the side-arm, and an upside down human figure on the side of the shaft, above parallel curving lines. The carving on narrow face D consists of a coiled snake with prominent tongue on the upper arm, another panel of lattice work on the end of the side-arm, and on the shaft a pair of figures above an area too weathered to make out the details.
Date: tenth century.
References: Stuart 1856, pl 118; ECMS pt 3,470-2; Stevenson 1959, 49-51.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2019.
