102 PRE-NORMAN CROSS-SHAFTS FOUND AT NORBURY. 



peculiar pattern on the back of Norbury cross-shaft No. i is 

 only to be found elsewhere on the pillar-crosses at Ham and 

 Checkley in Staffordshire.* 



There is not much to be said about the human figures on 

 the Norbury cross-shafts, as their meaning is somewhat obscure. 



I have already pointed out the remarkable similarity which 

 exists between the designs of the sculptured monuments at 

 Checkley, Ham, and Alstonfield in Staffordshire, and those 

 at Norbury in Derbyshire. I venture to call the whole of 

 these the Dove Dale sub-group of the larger Mercian group 

 of pre-Norman crosses. If casts of all the Mercian crosses 

 were to be taken and arranged in the museums at Sheffield, 

 Nottingham, or Derby, it would be possible to compare the 

 whole group in a way that is not now possible. Most of the 

 crosses are still exposed to the _ disintegrating effects of the 

 weather, and the sculpture upon them is slowly, but none the 

 less surely, being obliterated. How could a few hundred 

 pounds be belter spent than in preserving some permanent 

 record of these priceless treasures of early Christian art in 

 England before il. is too late ? 



* A similar, but not identical pattern, occurs on the fragment of a 

 cross-shaft at Stowe Nine Churches, Northamptonshire. (See C. A. 

 Markham's S/one Crosses of N orthamptonshire, p. loS.) 



