Strathmartine, Sculptured Cross

Strathmartine 8 (St Martin), Angus, cross-arm fragments

Measurements: no 8 H 0.26m, W 0.31m, D 0.11m; no 8a H 0.46m, W 0.25m, D 0.11m

Stone type: red sandstone

Place of discovery: NO 374361

Present location: no 8 is in Meffan Museum, Forfar; no 8a is lost.

Evidence for discovery: found in the churchyard of St Martin and later taken to Baldovan House. No 8 was later taken to a house near Jedburgh, where it was tracked down by Norman Atkinson and returned to Angus in 2006. No 8a was lost sometime in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Present condition: broken and defaced.

Description

These two fragments appear to belong to a free-standing ringed cross with rectangular terminals, edged with cable moulding. No 8 is the left-hand side-arm of face A, though its ornament, which was probably figural, has been almost entirely defaced. There is a small panel of interlace carved in relief on the lower narrow face of the arm, and face D at the terminal of the arm is carved with a frontal human figure, with his right hand at his beard and his left hand grasping the inner thigh of his left leg. Lost fragment 8a consisted of part of the centre of the cross-head and a damaged right-hand side-arm, along with part of the ring linking the arms.

Face A bore a central Crucifixion scene, of which Christ’s left arm and hand survived, with a soldier with a spear held in both hands below the arm and a winged angel in the arm terminal. The ring seems to have been bordered by a plain roll moulding and to have been filled with interlace. Face C on both fragments bore interlace in the side-arms which extended into the central area. The lost fragment 8a appears to have had spiral ornament in the centre of the cross-head on face C.

Date range: ninth or tenth century.

Primary references: Stuart 1856, pl 132; Stuart 1867, pl 101, nos 1 & 2; ECMS pt 3, 266-7; PAS Newsletter 39 (2006), 1.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2018