On the other hand, the stone block or socket, into which the shaft is mortised (and furthermore, as a rule, secured with lead), was regarded as a thoroughly appropriate place for ornament. It is most usually square on plan, and its upper bed made octagonal by means of steps or broaches, in the shaping of which a very great variety is manifested. The commonest form of step is diamond-pointed, but there are others which take the shape of a sort of round hump. Examples of plain diamond steps occur in the sockets of Thatcham (Fig. 61) and Water Perry (Fig. 4) crosses. The socket at Stanway, Gloucestershire (Fig. 60), with its severely geometrical triangles and lozenges, is of most unusual form. It measures 1 ft. 10 in. high, exclusive of the fractured stump of the shaft. Convex angle-stops occur at Carlton (Fig. 63), Cumnor (Fig. 59), Stringston (Fig. 5), and Wicken (Fig. 62). The socket of the last-named cross is 2 ft. 6 in. square by 1 ft. 8 in. high. Its octagonal shaft is 11½ in. square at the foot, with pointed stops reaching up to a height of 9 in. Some of the round stops, at the corners of sockets, have a diagonal ridge extending to the outer angle, as at Carlton (Fig. 63), Stevington (Fig. 17), and Stringston (Fig. 5). The knop of the last-named, it may be mentioned, consisted of four demi-angels, holding shields, but their heads have been broken off, and themselves made almost unrecognisable through defacement. To resume, the sockets of the crosses at Elmswell in Suffolk, at Bradford Abbas and Stalbridge (Fig. 58), both in Dorsetshire, and of at least a dozen crosses in Somersetshire, including Doulting (Figs. 74, 75, and 76), Evercreech, Minehead, North Petherton (Fig. 77), West Pennard, and Wraxall, have angle-pedestals on every alternate cant of the octagon. These pedestals may have been designed for statuettes of the four Evangelists. Whatever the subject of the figures, the effect of the whole group, with the tall shaft in the middle, must have been very handsome. At Dundry (Fig. 78) and Wick St Laurence, both in Somersetshire, instead of detached or engaged pedestals, there are, at the angles of the square socket, clasping buttresses with mouldings. The plan of Dundry, Wraxall, and Yatton is made extra elaborate and complex by means of a plinth, forming an eight-pointed figure, inserted between the socket and the topmost step of the calvary.