Reference

Date 1996

Event ID 923224

Category Documentary Reference

Type Reference

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/923224

The apse of the church (NY16NW 40) contains the Ruthwell Cross, the most important work in Scotland of the Anglo-Saxon Jarrow-Monkwearmouth school of sculpture. Its date, unlike that of the Bewcastle Cross (Cumbria), some of whose detail is almost identical, has been disputed, but the likeliest is the first half of the 8th century, when the Anglians were firmly in control of the former kingdom of Reheged and established a bishopric at Whithorn. The original site is also uncertain, but it is not inconceivable that the Cross was designed to stand inside an Anglian church on the present site.

J Gifford 1996.