Sockburn 21

3D Model

A 10th Century ‘Hogback’ stone found in or around the ruins of an early medieval church on a peninsular formed by a large meander in the River Tees. It was recently moved for safety into temporary storage in Durham Cathedral Museum, with funding from Historic England. The ridge was most likely hacked away to enable the stone to be used as building material. The top would probably have been carved to depict rooftiles rather like the Brompton hogbacks https://skfb.ly/opXr9 — the bodies of the endbests are still visible. One detail that has almost gone unnoticed is the axe behind the central figure on the least damaged side - only previously mentioned by James Lang who thought the scene showed the Norse god Tyr about to get his hand bitten off by Fenrir. See https://chacklepie.com/ascorpus/catvol1.php?pageNum_urls=487 and https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/5617/SockburnHallDarlingtonAnarchaeologicalinvestigationofthemedievalandpost-medievalmanorsandthesettingofthepre-Conquestchurch