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Sites Anne T has logged on trip number: 57 (View all trips)
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St Cuthbert's Church (Darlington)
Trip No.57 Entry No.1 Date Added: 25th Oct 2017
Site Type: Ancient Cross
Country: England (County Durham)
Visited: Yes on 25th Oct 2017. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5
St Cuthbert's Church (Darlington) submitted by Anne T on 25th Oct 2017. AS Corpus Darlington 1 and Darlington 2, displayed in the nave, against the second pier of the south arcade.
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Log Text: Ancient crosses, Saxon sundials and a hogback in Darlington: Originally due to go out for the whole day, we suddenly found ourselves having to rush back for an engineer arriving at our house after lunch. As we had an appointment to be at the church for 10.30am, to look round whilst there was a service in the chancel, we decided there was time enough to get to Darlington and back.
We met the church wardens we'd been liaising with very briefly to say ‘hello and thanks’ to. It was amusing as at least 3 people came into the church wanting to know where the church office was, so I pointed them in the general direction. It was odd wandering around the church with a communion service taking place in the chancel and sanctuary, and I was careful not to use the flash on the camera, although parts of the church were very dark, especially around the hogback.
We couldn’t find a couple of the catalogued items from the Corpus, and I struggled to identify which of the three cross heads we were seeing against those the Corpus lists. I looked through the Information for Guides folder and found an Architectural Assessment by Petr F. Ryder, Historic Buildings Consultant, dated 1997, part of which read:
“Pre Conquest Sculpture: Six pieces of Pre-Conquest sculpture are listed by Cramp (1984, 62-3). Of these one cross head, with the top of the shaft, dated to the late 10th or early 11th century, and an incomplete cross head of the early 11th century, are displayed in the nave, against the second pier of the south arcade; in a corresponding position on the opposite side of the nave is a supposedly Saxon sundial. In the north transept aumbry is part of a hogback, seen as a ‘crude copying of a type more elegantly represented at Brompton, Yorkshire’, and dated to the second quarter of the 10th century. Another fragment, seen as part of a large recumbent slab of the second half of the 10th century, lies in the south transept along with medieval cross slabs. A fifth stone which formerly lay outside the south transept, seen as possibly part of a dedication or ‘station’ slab from within the church, is now lost.”