ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT The group of ve carved 10th to 11th century cross fragments at Neston, Cheshire, constitute an unusual and interesting group of great iconographic value. In form, they belong to a welldened type of circle-headed crosses known on the margins of the Irish Sea, but in design they are distinct in the range and number of gural carvings they bear. This chapter seeks to explore whether the author’s suggestion in an earlier article of a tentative reconstruction of one cross based on two of them is accurate (White 1988). This chapter also considers the question of the signicance of the overall group in terms of the iconography and what it can tell us of the society that created and used these monuments.
In 1875, during the rebuilding of the Church of Sts. Mary and Helen, Neston, Cheshire, four fragments of carved stones were discovered and briey published (Smith 1875, pp. 88-93). In a pioneering article on the group, J.D. Bu’Lock (1959) recognised them as examples of circle-headed crosses of Viking date (10th to 11th centuries) intended for grave markers.
