REMAINS OF THE PRE-NORMAN PERIOD 
inscription will be considered later on with other inscriptions ; here we 
are concerned only with the style and execution of the monuments, 
classed together according to their resemblance to one another and to 
well-known types outside the county. The Bewcastle cross is a square 
pillar of grey freestone from the moors above the valley ; it is 143 feet 
in height above the pedestal, 21 by 22 inches thick at the base, tapering 
to 13 by 14 inches at the top, from which the cross-head is lost. A 
written note in a copy of Camden’s Britannia in the Bodleian records that 
a cross-head from ‘ Bucastle’ was sent to the writer from Lord William 
(Howard), the antiquarian owner of Naworth Castle, so that the head 
has been missing only since the days of Queen Elizabeth. With it the 
cross would have been about 21 feet high from the base of the pedestal, 
a block weighing about 6 tons, into which the cross was anciently fixed 
with lead. In 1891 some repairs were done to the pedestal ; otherwise 
the cross is unrestored. It is said that damage has been done at different 
times to the carving and the inscription, but the stone is extremely hard 
and the design is nearly perfect. 
On the west face are three panels with figures: at the top St. John 
the Baptist carrying the Lamb of God; in the middle Christ standing 
on the heads of swine, a fine figure in long robes, carrying in His left 
hand a scroll, the Book of Remembrance, and raising His right hand in 
blessing ; His head is youthful and slightly bearded, unlike the ordinary 
medizval type of the suffering Redeemer. Below is the figure of a man 
in a tunic and hood, carrying a stick or spear and lifting a hawk from its 
perch. It is a naturalistic figure, evidently meant for a portrait of some 
contemporary, probably the person to whom the monument was set up, 
who is said in the inscription to have been king Alchfrith. It cannot 
represent St. John with the eagle, who would have been dressed in flow- 
ing robes and posed in some such dignified way as St. John the Baptist 
above. The theory that only Scriptural or symbolic subjects were repre- 
sented on these monuments is disproved by several of the stones we shall 
pass in review, and the custom of portraiture on Christian tombs was 
common in all ages. 
On the north face are two panels of symmetrical interlacing ; two 
of foliage and fruits, the conventional vine-scroll of the earliest Italo- 
Greek Christian art; and a central panel of chequers, which, though they 
have been taken as indicating a late date, are seen also in slightly different 
pattern on the cross at Irton. 
The east face has one continuous vine-scroll, with animals in the 
branches—the ‘ fox that spoils the vines,’ two squirrels and two birds. 
The south face has three symmetrical interlacings and two panels of 
foliage, the upper one having a dial worked into the design. This dial 
is a semicircle with hole for the gnomon now lost, and rays marking 
twelve divisions between sunrise and sunset. It is certainly a part of the 
original monument, and such a dial at Kirkdale (Yorkshire) is proved to 
be Anglo-Saxon by its inscription ; there is no reason to suppose that 
people in the seventh century were ignorant of this ancient contrivance for 
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