247 THE CROSS OF IRBIC AT LLANDOUGH, GLAMORGANSHIRE. BY J. ROMILLY ALLEN, F.S.A. THE village of Llandough (pronounced Llandorf) is situated three miles south-west of Cardiff, and must not be confused with the other Llandough near Cowbridge. The nearest railway station is Cogan, on the line from Cardiff to Barry. The cross at Llandough stands in the churchyard on the south side. It is quite unlike most of the monuments of the same period in Wales,' or, indeed, in any other part of Great Britain and Ireland. The architectural features of the design here assume a prominence not to be found elsewhere. The earlier Christian monuments in Great Britain were simply the crosspages of the Celtic illuminated MSS, transferred to a rectangular slab of stone, and were altogether devoid of architectural features. The upright cross-slabs of the north-eastern district of Scotland afford the best examples of this style of treatment, and it must be noticed that the thickness of the slab is inconsiderable as compared with the width of the face on which the ornamental cross is carved. The later free-standing crosses were no doubt evolved from the upright crossslabs by gradually cutting away the background of the cross; and this accounts for the fact that the shafts of the free-standing crosses have two broad faces and two narrow faces (like the upright cross-slabs), or, in other words, the cross-section of the shaft is rectangular and not square. The pillar-crosses, with shafts of square or round cross-section, appear to be a later 1 The cross which most nearly resembles that at Llandough is the one at Pen-yr-Allt, Glamorganshire (Prof. J. O. Westwood's Lapidarium Walliæ, pl. 30). development. In the case of the Llandough cross the section of the shaft is not quite square, although very nearly so, and there are very pronounced roll-mouldings at the four angles. When the Llandough cross was perfect, the design must have consisted of three parts: namely (1) the head; (2) the shaft; and (3) the pedestal. Constructionally it was built up out of five separate stones : namely (1) the head; (2) the shaft; (3) the cap of the pedestal; (4) the body of the pedestal; and (5) the base of the pedestal. The dimensions are as follows: Total height of cross Height of cap of pedestal Height of body of pedestal Height of base of pedestal Width of shaft. Thickness of shaft Width of cap of pedestal (north face) Width of cap of pedestal (west face) 5 2 1 1 9 Width of base of pedestal at top (north face) The different stones of which the cross is constructed are fixed together by mortice and tenon joints. The body of the pedestal has a tenon at both ends, one fitting into a mortice in the base-stone, and the other into a mortice in the cap-stone. The material used in the construction of the cross is magnesian limestone from the quarry at Sutton, on the south coast of Glamorganshire. The ornament on the various parts of the cross is as follows: On the Shaft-(north face). The S-shaped knot (Fig. 1) repeated four times in a single vertical row, double-beaded; (south face) a diagonal key-pattern, double-beaded; (east face) the Stafford knot |