Gosmount, Cross-shaft

Coldingham, Gosmount, Berwickshire, cross-shaft fragment

Measurements: H 0.38m, W 0.36m, D 0.18m

Stone type: red sandstone

Place of discovery: NT c 903 659

Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB 44)

Evidence for discovery: found re-used in the wall of Gosmount farmhouse near Coldingham sometime before 1852.

Present condition: broken and worn.

Description

This is a small portion of a cross-shaft, carved in relief on all four faces within a plain flat band moulding and an inner roll moulding. Face A bears interlace with diagonal strands and faces B and D also bear interlace patterns. Face C shows parts of two intertwined animals with double incised lines on their bodies.

Date: eighth or ninth century.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2016

NT96NW 8 901 663.

(NT 901 663) A fragment of a Class III cross-shaft of red sandstone, recently discovered in the wall of a farmhouse in a field called God's Mount, which is part of Coldingham Hill (name on OS 6" map, Berwickshire, 2nd ed., 1908) (J Stuart 1867) is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS Accession No: IB 44). It measures 1ft 3ins in height by 1ft 2ins in width and 7ins in thickness, and is sculptured in relief on all four faces, thus:

Front - Part of a panel of interlaced work; Back - Part of a panel containing interlaced beasts, with double outline and pellets in the background as on some of the Mercian stones in England; Right Side - Interlaced work and a six-cord plait; Left Side - Interlaced work. Its original site is unknown.

J Stuart 1867; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1878 (Donations); J R Allen and J Anderson 1893; RCAHMS 1915.

God's (Gos) Mount may be identified with Kirk Hill, and so this stone may have come from the monastic site NT96NW 5.

Information from Mr R Weatherhead (Dunbar), 31 January 2003.