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Sites Anne T has logged on trip number: 80 (View all trips)
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Cleatlam Wayside Cross
Trip No.80 Entry No.1 Date Added: 2nd Jul 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross
Country: England (County Durham)
Visited: Yes on 1st Jul 2018. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 5
Cleatlam Wayside Cross submitted by Anne T on 2nd Jul 2018. First view of the cross base, approaching from the north and the minor road through the village.
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Log Text: Cleatlam Wayside Cross, County Durham: This tiny village is picturesque, with large houses and farms on either side of the minor road through the village. The cross base wasn't easy to spot, hidden behind trees in a temporarily fenced off area of land, which looked like it used to be the old village green.
Sited just to the north of a wooden bench, the remains of this cross base is very odd. At first view, it looks to be a square block of stone split into two, but closer inspection reveals it is two separate pieces of stone embedded into the ground, with a smaller block placed on top.
Both Pastscape and HE say there is no socket hole, so presumably the cross would have been quite low and stood directly on top of this slab.
One of the strangest cross bases I've seen. In the field opposite, there are some interesting lumps and bumps, with a hollow way running almost parallel to the modern stone wall. Several housing/building platforms can be made out in the field. Pastscape attributes these earthworks to 'village shrinkage'.
St Mary's Church (Wycliffe)
Trip No.80 Entry No.2 Date Added: 2nd Jul 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross
Country: England (County Durham)
Visited: Yes on 1st Jul 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 4
St Mary's Church (Wycliffe) submitted by Anne T on 2nd Jul 2018. Close up of the main face of the hog back sited to the west of the south door, inside the church. Recorded as AS Corpus Wycliffe 05, this hogback dates to the first half of the 10th century. The church guide says it is Danish and was dug up on the north side of the church, found at a depth of 4ft 6ins, in 1801. The Corpus says the panels contain the tops of interlace patterns, probably four-cord plait.
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Log Text: Hogback and Anglo Danish/Saxon cross fragments, Wycliffe, County Durham: This is a spectacular little village, down a narrow, dead end lane leading to the River Tees. It was difficult to park, as the lane to the church has a sign saying ‘private road’ (although a sign also says ‘to the church’), so we bumped up on the verge, as close to a stone wall as we dared, leaving just enough room for another car to pass (everywhere else said ‘private’ or ‘no parking’.
Walking down the lane to the church, we approached from the north west, walking round to the south porch, which held a ‘welcome’ notice. A strange church – lovely, warm (but very worn) yellow sandstone, but no tower, just a couple of bells.
The main hogback fragment is just to the west of the south door, inside the church, with another fragment immediately opposite, and more against the western wall.
There is a really old Bishop’s chair against the north wall of the sanctuary, a Norman (11th century) font also against the north wall of the sanctuary and some really interesting 13th and 14th century glass.
When I got a phone signal, we realised we’d not seen the hogback fragment in the exterior southern wall, and as we were passing on our way back, went back to spot this and also found a boundary marker at the entrance to the churchyard.