197. BISLEY, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
MONUMENT IN THE CHURCHYARD
A very strange socket, comprising two stages, both cylindrical with a slight batter, stands to the north of the church in the churchyard at Ripley, Yorkshire (Fig. [196]). The topmost stage is about 2 ft. 3½ in. high, and the diameter of its upper bed is 2 ft. 9 in. It has had sunk into it, from the shaft of a cross, a mortise 8½ in. deep by 18 in. by 10 in. The bottom stage is 2 ft. high by about 4 ft. 8 in., the diameter of its upper bed, which varies from 6 to 7½ in. wider all round than the foot of the upper stage. A most peculiar feature is the series of eight cavities averaging 6 in. deep and from 14 to 17 in. high, by 7 to 10½ in. wide at the top. It cannot be that these cavities were receptacles for offerings, for eight of them would be largely in excess of any reasonable requirements of alms-gathering. It has been called a "weeping cross" on the supposition that the hollows were meant for penitents to kneel in. But this again cannot be, for the spaces available are not nearly large enough for such a purpose. It may be that the bottom stage of the Ripley cross is, after all, nothing else than the inverted bowl of a font, and the hollows surrounding it niches for statuary. The problem, however, is one which has not hitherto been satisfactorily explained.
198. ST LOYE'S, WONFORD, DEVONSHIRE
199. ALPHINGTON, DEVONSHIRE
At Bisley, Gloucestershire, in the west end of the churchyard, stands a singular structure of stone, of early-thirteenth-century work (Fig. [197]). Circular on plan at the foot and hexagonal above, it now measures about 12 ft. high, the original cross or finial at the apex having disappeared. This monument has been variously described as a cross, a well-head, or a bone-house. Probably it is rather a combination between a cross (for with such it must almost certainly have been crowned) and a lantern for the "poor souls' light." The trefoil-headed openings in each cant seem designed expressly for emitting the light of a lamp burning within, while the dormer-like hoods of the said openings would shelter the flame from wind and rain. Such lantern pillars are known to have been in use in the Middle Ages, though they have very rarely survived to our own times. There exists, however, a fine example of late-fourteenth or early-fifteenth century work, standing outside the north-east part of the Dom at Regensburg, in Bavaria.