Pre-Norman Stone Crosses in the British Isles

It is almost inevitable that people will make comparisons between the ancient crosses which still survive, though it may be misguided to do so, since weathering and attacks from iconoclastically-minded people mean that what we see now is hardly a fair representation of the artistry that was present when all of these monuments were new. Once you start to play the game of saying which is the "best" ancient cross, then you have to consider the cross standing outside St. Brynach's Church in Nevern as a strong contender for the title. (It isn't, as it happens, my personal favourite, but it is a wonderful monument to the faith of those who erected it, nevertheless.)

The cross is four metres tall, and bears a rich variety of ornamentation on all four faces. The wheel-head is a separate piece of sculpture, and sits loosely atop the shaft on a tenon and mortise joint. The east and west faces each bear a panel with half-uncial letters carved in them. These inscriptions are very short (three letters on W and between five and ten on E) and worn, and thus very hard to decipher.

The shorter inscription is interpreted by many as being "d n s", which is taken to be an abbreviation of "dominus" - Latin for "Lord". On the other hand, some authorities claim that there are five letters on the back, "h a e n h" and cannot make anything of that apart from a claim that it might mean "halleluia". I differ. A closer inspection of the inscription reveals other possibilities. I ask the question: why should the "h" at the start be twice as big as all the other letters? I don't think it is. Instead, I read two lines of text "l o c u . / i . e n", and for the mal-formed letters, I offer an "s" and an "l"; it might also be that the final "n" is actually a ligatured "ti" making it say "locus ilen/ileti", Latin for "the place of ilen/ilet". I don't know what or who "ilen" or "ilet" was, but at least it's a reading of the letters that might mean something.

The Celtic Cross is by no means the only ancient monument at Nevern. Whilst the cross is believed to date from the tenth century, another stone, estimated to be five centuries older as a monument, stands next to the church porch - see left.

This stone carries an inscription carved on it using two different character sets. In Latin, it says, "Vitaliani Emereto", and in Ogham it says, "Vitaliani".

The fifth-century date ascribed to this monument makes it possibly contemporary with Saint David, who is said to have passed this way en route to the Synod at Llanddewi-Brefi. A legend has it that he left the Celtic cross behind him, but clearly that part of the story is fanciful. However that may be, St. Brynach is said to have founded the church here in about 570, and he definitely was a contemporary of St. David.

Inside the church there is more. On window-sills in the north transept are mounted two stones of great interest. The left hand one of these is called the Maglocunus Stone, after the person named in the Latin and Ogham inscriptions on it. Like the Vitalianus Stone, this is dated to the fifth century. This particular stone is to Celtic and ancient Welsh studies what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptology - with an inscription given twice in a known script and an unknown one, this artefact provided the key to unlock the Ogham alphabet.

The right hand stone may be originally from a grave-lid, and it bears a Celtic design of interlaced lines which is cross-shaped, but seems also to have something of a feminine character to it. Some of the features seem primitive, while others seem advanced, so an eighth or ninth century date might be appropriate.

There is yet more in the church grounds and nearby. A stone presumed to have been engraved during the Romano-British period has been used in building one of the window-frames in the chancel. Near to the church, cut into a rock face is an ancient Pilgrim's Cross, which was scheduled as an ancient monument even before the great Celtic Cross; it marked a stopping point on the pilgrim route from Holywell to St. David's. A couple of miles from the Church is the famous prehistoric megalithic tomb of Pentre Ifan.

Grave-lids (see also Hogbacks)

Kirkdale

Hickling, Kirkdale, Nevern/Nanhyfer, Sandbach, Wirksworth

Some distinguished folk were buried in very ornately-carved stone coffins. The lids of these coffins were sometimes decorated with the same kind of interlace carvings found on the stone crosses, and on other occasions, they were adorned with images relevant to the person buried underneath them.

The grave lid at Wirksworth is of exceptional quality, and is arguably the finest artefact to have survived to our day from the earliest period of the Christian mission to the Saxon kingdom of Mercia.

In Viking areas, the graves were constructed differently, and the lids have a distinctive shape, known as a hogback.

Inscriptions
Nevern/Nanhyfer (The inscription has been picked out in yellow for clarity.)	Latin	Eliseg's Pillar/Piler Eliseg, Escomb, Llanddewi-Brefi, Nevern/Nanhyfer
	Ogham	Nevern/Nanhyfer
	Old English	Great Edstone, Kirkdale, Wensley
	Runes	Bewcastle, Old Byland, Urswick
	Welsh	Tywyn
Inscriptions come in several recognisable forms. They may be in different languages, including Latin and Old English, and they may use different scripts, including Ogham, runes, and the alphabet which evolved into the one in current use (though Old English has extra letters compared with today). In some cases, the same inscription is given in more than one form, and such monuments are particularly useful, as they can provide information about the decipherment of such scripts, much like the Rosetta Stone did for Egyptian hieroglyphics. The inscriptions can tell various things: sometimes they give the name of the person commemorated by the monument, sometimes its maker. Occasionally, they convey information about historical circumstances; these are often the most valuable inscriptions, because they allow definite dates to be assigned to the objects. In the case of those inscriptions which appear simply to be a name, some discretion has been applied in categorising them; generally, they are classified according to the language that uses a similar script.

* The Ordnance Survey National Grid Reference (and corresponding Latitude/Longitude) given at the top of the pages describing individual sites usually refer to the location of the closest or most prominent entrance to the site where the monument is to be found - e.g. a gate into a churchyard. For monuments located in open country, or at a significant distance from the site entrance as just defined, the co-ordinates usually refer to the exact location of the monument.
Please allow for a small error in the co-ordinates of up to a couple of dozen metres.

Thanks to the people at streetmap.co.uk, if you click on the Grid References in the magenta boxes on the site pages,
you'll see an extract from the relevant Ordnance Survey 1:50000 Landranger map!

As the official mapping agency of the United Kingdom Government, the Ordnance Survey produces the definitive maps of the country. They contain a wealth of information.
For more details, visit www,ordnancesurvey.co.uk/leisure

Click here if you need an explanation of the terminology on these pages

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South	East	West	North
The four faces of the Nevern Celtic Cross, October 2000 The pictures are presented thus to correspond to a much-reproduced drawing which shows all four faces of the cross. Comparison between the two reveals that the ornament at the foot of the West face is incorrect in the drawing, and the ornamentation from the ears and shoulders of the wheel-head is also missing from the drawing, finally the wheel-head faces are mis-drawn as copies of each other, when they are clearly quite different. I'm only being picky because the drawing sells the cross short!


The inscribed panels from the west and east faces, with the incised letter shapes picked out in yellow.

Roman or Romano-British sites
Margam	Askham Richard, Ilkley, Llanddewi-Brefi, Margam, Nevern/Nanhyfer, Penmachno

Celtic sites
Nevern/Nanhyfer	Carew/Caeriw, Nevern/Nanhyfer, Penmon, Stonegrave