‘ 
On Fragments of Saxon Cross Shaft, and Silver Ornament. 231 
The largest piece measures lft. x Ift. Odin. on the face. It is 
_ plainly part of one face of a rectangular stone belonging to a cross 
shaft of pre-Norman age. It was apparently about a foot square 
in section. On one edge part of the flat fillet or border in which 
_ the panels of the cross were enclosed, remains—and on this side of 
the stone a very small portion of the ornament which formed the 
side panel is visible, apparently similar in character to that on the 
face. The opposite side has lost its surface, and the stone has been 
_ broken through about 6in. from the front face. The surface of 
the carving is a good deal pitted and worn, showing that it was 
exposed to the weather for some time. The pattern is scroll work 
of conventionalised vine branches, and bunches of grapes; the 
_ stems having in all cases the central line running down them, so 
characteristic of Saxon work. Of this stem and leaf ornament only 
two examples have hitherto been known in Wilts—the panels on 
the piers of the arch at Britford and the coped grave slab at 
Ramsbury—both of which are illustrated in vol. xxvii., p.65. The 
Britford example has leaves‘and bunches of grapes, but in the 
arrow-head shape of the leaves the Ramsbury grave slab comes 
“nearest to the Minety pattern; indeed, the two might very well 
have been carved by the same hand, though the Ramsbury slab 
has only leaves and no grapes, and the pattern is more regular. 
Other cross shafts in the North of England have the same con- 
yentional leaf, but none that I know of resemble the Minety stone 
so closely as the Wiltshire examples mentioned above. 
_ The middle-sized stone is a fragment of, apparently, another 
shaft stone of about the same dimensions as the other. The carved 
face measures 11 x 5} inches, and on the end of the fragment, 
which is 1ft. deep, is a faint trace—an inch long—of a bit of stem 
which formed part of the opposite face. The pattern shows no 
trace of any leaf, and is apparently different from that of the 
arger stone. 
The smaller piece—8 x 4 inches—shows a stem and leaf of 
precisely the same character as the pattern of the large stone. 
ndeed this may well be a fragment of the same stone. 
The material of all three stones is a rather coarse hard oolite, the 
YOL. XXX.—NO. XCI. Q 
