At Headington (Figs. 69 and 70), Ombersley (Figs. 66, 67, and 68),
Raglan (Fig. 71), and Wicken (Fig. 62), the sockets are handsomely
panelled with late-Gothic tracery ornament, principally quatrefoils.
The sockets of Doulting (Figs. 74, 75, and 76) and West Pennard
crosses, in Somersetshire, have emblems of the Passion carved on
the sides; that at Charlton Mackerel (Fig. 19) has the Evangelistic
symbols in the same position. More rarely, as at Bishop's Lydeard
(Fig. 20) and Long Sutton, both also in Somersetshire, and at
Rampisham and Stalbridge (Fig. 58), both in Dorsetshire, and
Yarnton, Oxfordshire (Figs. 51 and 52), the panels of the socket
contain sculptured figure-subjects. An octagonal socket at Westcote,
Gloucestershire, has a standing figure under a trefoiled niche on
each side. This is an early example, since its date is the thirteenth
century. At Didmarton, in the same county, is a fourteenth-century
socket, octagonal on plan, having a half-length figure sculptured on
every alternate side.
The churchyard cross at Dorchester, Oxfordshire (Fig. 65), had lost
its original head by the time that Buckler made his sketch in 1813.
According to him, the lower step was 6 in. high, and the next one
above it 10 in. high. The socket was 1 ft. 7 in. square on plan, by
1 ft. 6 in. high; the shaft being a monolith 8 ft. 6½ in. high
from socket to head. As to the socket, the transition from square to
octagon, by means of stops, is very effective. The cross has since
suffered drastic "restoration." The treatment of the stops on the
socket may be compared with that at Keyingham, Yorkshire (Fig. 64),
and Headington, Oxfordshire (Fig. 69).
The Whitefriars' cross (Figs. 72 and 73), so-called, about a mile from
Hereford, is believed to have been built, shortly after the great
plague at Hereford in the fourteenth century, by Lewis Charlton,
Bishop from 1361 to 1369. On the summit of a lofty flight of seven
steps rises a high pedestal, hexagonal on plan, each side of which has
a sunk panel, sculptured with a shield charged with a lion rampant.
The cornice is embattled, and the whole was crowned with a moulded
socket. Such was the state of the monument in 1806, the shaft and
cross-head having completely disappeared, thereby reducing the total
height to some 15 ft. A new shaft and cross, disproportionately large,
were "restored" by the year 1875. The peculiar feature of this cross
is the lofty pedestal, which scarcely has any parallel, with the
exception of the crosses of Helpston, in Northamptonshire, and of
Aylburton and Clearwell, both in Gloucestershire.
As to the shaft, whether it be cylindrical, clustered, square, or
octagonal, it usually tapers, but is very seldom ornamented, beyond
having a stop near the foot of each alternate cant in an octagonal
stem. A few crosses may now be described, illustrating different
treatments of the shaft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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