By Dr Avril Lumley Prior
My fascination with St Pega, sister of the reclusive Guthlac of Crowland (died 716), began almost twenty years ago, when I discovered that this Mercian noblewoman and miracle-worker had founded a cell on the site of Peakirk Hermitage, which from 1980 to 2001 was occupied by members of an enclosed order of Anglican nuns, the Society of the Precious Blood.
In 1996, Sister Margaret Mary, graciously allowed me to view the lower section of a late tenth-/early eleventh-century cross-shaft that stood in the shadows of the atmospheric chancel of the Hermitage chapel. Immediately, I was mesmerised by exquisiteness of the roughly-wrought, Barnack limestone sculpture that which stood approximately 52.3 cm (201⁄2”) and 24.5cm (93⁄4”) square at its base.
I have been reacquainted with the cross-shaft several times since then, by kind invitation of the Hermitage’s owners. However, my visit on 26th April 2010 was under entirely different circumstances. On this occasion, I was in Bonham’s Gallery in New Bond Street, with Dr Joanna Story from Leicester University, who was taking measurements and photographs for a Corpus (inventory) of our region’s surviving Anglo-Saxon stone-work that she is compiling with Professor Rosemary Cramp of Durham. Jo and I understood that the cross-shaft was to be auctioned on 28 April and may have disappeared into a private collection.
Displayed to its advantage on a plinth beneath the gallery’s spotlights, the true beauty of the stone-carving was revealed. Details that had hitherto been indistinct in the dimly-lit chapel appeared with amazing clarity. Whilst one tapering face is occupied by a bas-relief of swirling foliage, the other three depict mythical ‘Mercian beasts’ with interlacing tails reminiscent of the designs favoured by the ‘Peterborough Group’ of stone-carvers, who were operating in our area from the late eighth century until 870, when Danish invaders put pay to their activities. Undeniably, the cross-shaft’s reflection of earlier craftsmanship makes it very special and unmistakably of local origin.
Nevertheless, evidence of the sculpture’s exact provenance is conflicting and there are many questions left unanswered. ‘Formal’ accounts written by the Victorian antiquarians, J Romilly Allen and Christopher Markham, insist that it was found in Peakirk Church during alterations to the chancel floor and pulpit for which a Faculty [permission from the bishop] was obtained on 9 May 1879. Indeed, examples of Anglo-Saxon stone-carvings have been discovered when church paving-slabs were lifted at Castor and Barnack.
If this were to be the case at Peakirk, was the cross-shaft hidden during Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan regime (1649-60) when religious imagery was forbidden and destroyed? Moreover, since the original cross could have been two or three metres tall with a wheel-shaped head, are there other fragments beneath the church floor yet to be recovered?
Romilly Allen and Markham also maintain that the fragment of shaft was ‘preserved’ in the Hermitage Chapel, which had been converted into a Sunday school and parish hall by Rector of Peakirk Edward James’ brother, Francis, in 1878. However, there is neither a citation of its discovery nor a Faculty pertaining to its removal to the Hermitage among the Peakirk Diocesan Records stored at Northampton Record Office.
Therefore, if the sculpture were exposed during church renovations, was it simply taken to the village hall for safe-keeping under the guardianship of the Rector’s brother, Edward, while building work was in progress? If so, why wasn’t it returned?
Conversely, the Rector’s daughter, Bertha James, who inherited the Hermitage Chapel from her Uncle Edward in 1916, claimed that the sculpture ‘was originally found at Deeping and given to the Hermitage many years ago by Dr. [Canon Edward] Moore’, Vicar of SS Mary’s and Nicholas’ Church, Spalding (1866-89), an amateur archaeologist with a penchant for excavating Bronze-Age barrows.
Nevertheless, Bertha’s unpublished memoirs, recorded in 1926, contain numerous inaccuracies. Furthermore, since parish records confirm that she was residing in London until at least 1919, how much of her information was based on hearsay? At the moment, all that we may safely deduce is that the fragment was installed at the Hermitage between 1878, when Francis James acquired the building and 1885, when architect and antiquarian, JT Irvine, included the cross-shaft among his sketches of ‘Ancient Sculpture’. Perhaps, our sole chance of solving the mystery of the Peakirk cross-shaft’s origin depends on another section being unearthed.
The function of the cross is also open to speculation. We know that the parish church was originally dedicated in the honour of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary and All Saints and that St Pega died and was buried in Rome in 719. Therefore, it seems unlikely that a memorial would be erected to her in Peakirk, unless it originally stood near the site of her cell at the Hermitage.
Alternatively, the cross could have served as a monument to a local dignitary, an elaborate boundary marker of Peterborough Abbey or as a focus for religious devotion before the parish church was built c. 1016. We really do not know. What cannot be disputed is that the sculpture unambiguously represents a tangible link with Peakirk’s Anglo-Saxon past and a crucial part of the region’s cultural heritage.
At time of going to press, it is understood that the cross-shaft has been withdrawn from the Bonham’s auction and remains in private ownership for the time being.
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