The Irton Cross

Extract from p336 of The Victoria history of the county of Cumberland (1901)

This last site is interesting as being close to the ancient harbour of Ravenglass ; and just on the other side of the harbour at Irton is a famous cross in the churchyard, which in spite of some features usually put down as Celtic, or Hiberno-Saxon, must be classed as an Anglian work. The Irton cross is carved from a single block of red sandstone, head and shaft in one piece, 10 feet high from the pedestal. The carving has been all done with the chisel, without drill or pick, and is smooth, highly-finished work, very varied in depth. The parts where the pattern runs closely together are kept shallow and flattish ; here and there a few emphatic points are deeply hollowed, giving strong touches of shade and throwing the flatter parts into breadth and delicacy. On the panel now blank are said to have been Anglian runes (described under the heading of Inscriptions) ; above the panel is a symmetrical interlacing, and below it is a very elaborate symmetrical double strand interlaced. The edges bear fine scrolls of fruit, leaves and flowers, in the best style of Anglian art, and quite foreign to Irish and Scandinavian work. The east side has two panels of diagonal key- pattern, hke the fragment at Workington, and two panels of geometrical ' kaleidoscope ' design ; at the top is a panel of chequers, like that at Bewcastle, except that they are little X -shaped depressions instead of squares. The head has on one side a boss and ring surrounded by fifteen smaller bosses, and on the other side five small bosses arranged in a cross surrounded by a ring and framed with interlacing. A curious incised plait is on the ends of the cross-arms, which are free and not joined by a wheel ; it is like the head of Ruthwell cross, which (though now restored) can never have been a wheel-cross