Saxon Crosses 1

Following on from my comments in Monday's blip I thought I'd go and shoot a Saxon Cross today. Though they have lurked at the back of the Church i've regularly attended for 9 years, I've never really looked at them in much detail, and blipping today learned a lot about them. So one blip isn't enough, I give you first of 3 over the weekend.

So there are 3 here in the back of the Church in the Tower. they date back to the 8th Century and are likely created associated with burial of important people.
These are important acheological artifacts in more than a local context. They have spent most of their lives outside so are pretty weathered, especially one of the others that served as a gatepost for sometime.

This is the tallest, it is not clear wether the top cross piece is original to this shaft, but there it sits. Apparently the top bit of the cross piece is an image of a "rude angel", (sadly I don't think that means what i'd like it to mean). Beneath is thought to be Christ enthroned in glory and seated. Below are various beasts not seen here but one example is here. Apparently there are similarities to the Rothwell Crosses in Dumfrieshire. It is interesting to me that this image on this side of the cross of Christ the redeemer above animals links to the notion of Christ as redeemer of the whole of creation not just humankind, which I understand would be a strong thead to faith back then, and one that is thought much more about recently as Christians coming up against green issues try to make sense of faith and created world and spoilt creation.

Tomorrow I will I'll bring you an intersting (and for me suprising) image of what these stone crosses might have originally looked like - just warming up my time machine(will that make it an 800yr old backblip?)