WE come now to the clearly defined group of 'round-shaft'
crosses which are the most distinctively specialized monuments
in the whole of the Late Saxon series. The majority of them are
congregated in the Peak country of north-western Mercia ¹ ( Fig. 7 ) and are centred on Macclesfield; but there are southern
outliers at Stapleford near Nottingham and at Penn and Bush-
bury near Wolverhampton, and one as far away as Yetminster
in Dorset. In the north there is a small detached group in
Cumberland and in the west there is one example in Denbigh-
shire; but on the east side of the Pennine Chain there is only one
cross of the type, now represented by a small fragment at West
Gilling near Richmond. The distinguishing feature of this kind
of cross is that while the lower part of the shaft is rounded, the
upper portion is square-sectioned, the junction between the
rounded and the squared lengths being marked by plainly
defined 'slices', giving an effect like that of squaring the upper
part of the trunk of a fir or some similar slender tree. To appre-
ciate this point we have only to look at that famous and most
justly admired cross (Pl. XLIV, 2 ) in Gosforth churchyard,
Cumberland. It is 14 1/2 feet in height; the round-sectioned base
is partly plain and partly sheathed with a scale-like 'Manx'
pattern (p. 63); and then come the four clean-cut 'slices' that
change the shaft into a tapering square-sectioned rod, the faces
of which are loaded with interlace designs, zoomorphic patterns,
and figure-subjects, all done according to the Viking taste,
though the ornament is not necessarily of direct Scandinavian
origin. The details include a Crucifixion in a cabled panel with
Longinus and Stephaton in the space below it; and it is at once
obvious that this group has no special prominence as a Christian
theme, but is simply one of many equally important elements
in the copious assembly of ornaments. Among these are other
subjects, not very easily identified but almost certainly of pagan

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