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Kirkconnel Manse
Cross Base (Early Medieval)
Site Name Kirkconnel Manse
Classification Cross Base (Early Medieval)
Canmore ID 45520
Site Number NS71SW 7
NGR NS 7243 1238
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/45520
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Kirkconnel
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Nithsdale
- Former County Dumfries-shire
Kirkconnel 8 (St Conal), Dumfriesshire, cross-base
Measurements: H 1.00m, W 0.76m, D 0.54m; socket L 0.43m, W 0.23m, D c 0.13m
Stone type:
Place of discovery: NS 7243 1238
Present location: inside Kirkconnel parish church (ID 45513) re-used as part of the font.
Evidence for discovery: found in 1897 in the north boundary wall of the glebe west of the manse and taken into the church. By 1929 it had been incorporated into the support for the font.
Present condition: broad face C and much of faces A and D are thoroughly damaged.
Description
This quadrilateral cross-base is bipartite in form and only the lower part appears ever to have been ornamented. The socket could have held a substantial cross-shaft. The surviving faces of the base are carved in low relief within sunken rectangular panels with incised outlines. There are the remains of interlace on face A, and the basal loops of three vertical twists on face D (there would have been space for at least four loops in each twist). Face B has two double-loop designs one above the other, the top design with rounded loops and the lower with pointed loops.
Date range: tenth or eleventh century.
References: ECMS pt 3, 440; Charleson 1929, 59-60; Craig 1992, 74-6.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2019.
NS71SW 7 7243 1238.
Massive 11thc ornamented cross-base, 36" high, 29" x 21" at base, with a socket hole, 17" x 9", on the top, found in the N boundary wall of the W glebe, near the highest point of the field, close to the present manse (NS 7243 1238) at Kirkconnel, in 1897, is now used as part of the font in the church.
W G Collingwood 1926; C F Charleson 1929
