The average form of standing cross, and such to which the vast majority of them, not in churchyards only, but also on village greens and squares, or by the wayside, belongs, is that of the shaft-on-steps type. The fully developed cross of this sort consists of steps or calvary, socket, shaft or stem, capital or knop, and head. The latter, it should be remarked, is that part of the cross which, no doubt on account of the sacred or legendary significance of the figures sculptured upon it, is now most commonly absent. The remaining elements consisting of such simple units, it is truly wonderful how great variety of treatment is to be observed in crosses of the kind. The resources of their design may almost be said to be unlimited. It rarely happens that any two examples are found quite alike in all respects. For though the simplest of motifs be adopted, yet a minute change of detail, such as a hollow chamfer instead of a plain, flat bevel, or the setting of an angle pedestal diagonally instead of squarely with the side it adjoins, or some such other slight divergence, if insignificant in itself, will not fail to produce, by consistent repetition, a widely different result in the aggregate. The parts which lend themselves more appropriately than the rest to ornamental treatment are the socket, the knop, and most of all, the head. The steps, whether circular, rectangular, hexagonal, or octagonal on plan, are not made the subject for ornament, except rarely, and then it is confined to a moulded overhanging drip, or a moulded set-off in the angle between the tread and the riser, as for example, at Bishop's Lydeard (Fig. 20), Charlton Mackerel (Fig. 19), and North Petherton, in Somersetshire (Fig. 77), and Raunds, in Northamptonshire (Fig. 45). Raunds cross has two steps, and the riser of the upper one is enriched with late-Gothic quatrefoil panelling. Such treatment, however, is altogether exceptional; and even in this case can scarcely be authentic, seeing that the quatrefoils are not properly spaced, as they must have been spaced, had they been designed for the position they now occupy. [Illustration: 45. RAUNDS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE CHURCHYARD CROSS]