Angles, Danes and Norse
in the District of Huddersfield
By W. G. Collingwood
MIRFIELD, CAWTHORNE, PENISTONE AND SKELMANTHORPE
Of the early Norman period there are a few monuments which
must be added. At Mirfield, near the site of a motehill,
possibly Ilbert de Lacy’s, for he was the Norman owner
in 1086, and perhaps originally at a chapel built on the
estate after that date, there is a rude and curious headstone
of the kind which came in to use when high crosses went
out of fashion. It is now on a pedestal at the east end
of Mirfield church. The ornament is a survival of Anglo-Danish
motives not yet Normanised. In the plait of a,
the late Anglian pattern is coarsely reproduced; in b
the basket-plait of the tenth century has been further debased
into a sort of gridiron. The beast of c
and the clumsy figure with a cross (d)
recall, though with a difference, animals on cross-shafts
of an earlier period at Ilkley and Sheffield, and figures
on crosses of the eighth and ninth centuries. But this headstone
is highly interesting as showing the continuance of the
old traditions hereabouts, down to the end of the eleventh
century, and it may be noted that “three Englishmen”
farmed Mirfield in 1086 as tenants.
A still further debasement of the old design is shown by
the stones at Cawthorne, three of which have been set up
in the churchyard, west of the church, forming a tall cross.
Another crosshead is built into the east wall of the chantry
chapel, outside. These two crossheads are almost of Anglian
form, but the ornament they bear and the patches of pattern
on the shaft are like nothing earlier than the eleventh
century. There is some difficulty understanding the grotesque
figure or figures on the side g, for its upper part is lost.
On a stone built into the wall on the north side of the
chancel-arch in Penistone church there is another piece
of the same kind of pattern. Like the rude, incised forms
on shafts at Ecclesfield church and other places in the
Don Valley, it seems to be a late attempt to give the effect
of plait-work without the trouble of drawing it, at a time
when the old art was almost forgotten. In 1086 there was
a priest and a church at Cawthorne, and the manor was still
held by its old English or Anglian owner, Alric.
 In
Cawthorne Church, at the east end, is a square font, brought
from Cannon Hall; and a similar font, said to have come
from High Hoyland, is at Skelmanthorpe, at the west end
of the church. The latter is represented in the Tolson Museum
by a cast made by Mr. Lockwood, and we own to Mr. C. Mosley
the photographs here produced. Though the Skelmanthorpe
font has not the dragons and crosses of the Cawthorne font,
it shows a curious pair of heads taking the place of flowers
on the tree-scrolls of two panels; and on two sides are
intersected arcades. This feature, as Mr. John Bilson tells
me, appear first in Northern England on a capital at Lastingham
of about 1073, and in architecture at Durham, 1093; so that
the date of these two fonts must be at the end of the eleventh
century at earliest. They seem to belong to the generation
following the Norman Conquest, when life hereabouts was
disturbed from its former channel of comparatively easy,
if rough, tradition and diverted into new courses under
the rule of the Normans. But this rudeness shows that the
carvers must have worked before the benefits of the new
rule had been left. Not the least of these benefits was
the building of great churches and abbeys, which in the
twelfth century brought the culture of the South into Yorkshire.
From the Norman Conquest onwards we have historical records
of our district; any such – if they ever existed for
the period we have been considering – were no doubt
destroyed in the Danish invasion and in subsequent disasters,
down to the Conquerer’s devastation. Surprising finds
are made, now and then, of fresh documents throwing light
upon dark periods; but it is hardly likely that much will
be discovered for a part of the country which was then so
rough and so far out of the way of busier centers. Scholars
are gradually reconstructing Roman Britain from the remains
found by excavation, and we are obliged to use the same
method for the Anglian and Danish periods in south-west
Yorkshire. This makes our ancient stones especially valuable.
It is pretty certain that the soil of our churchyards and
the walls of old buildings contain still more relics, as
important as those we possess. Anyone who takes an interest
can join in keeping watch for their appearance, when old
fabrics are pulled down or when the ground is freshly opened.
Great thanks are due to all who have noted and preserved
the fragments so recovered, most of which, at first sight,
have been almost formless and without obvious charm or worth.
Nevertheless they contribute in a wonderful degree to the
story of our own origins. They tell us, as we reflect upon
them, about the character of our ancestors, their thought
and art, how they looked at life and how they faced death.
And we too, with all our progress, are still the heirs of
those ages. Our best gifts are of their giving – the
industry and courage of the race, its respect for truth,
its love of beauty, and its hope for immortality.
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