Cross of St. Lawrence's
The original cross of St. Lawrence church (RCAHMW 1925: Crown Copyright: RCAHMW)
The Original Cross
In the beautiful county of Pembrokeshire lies the small twelfth century church of St. Lawrence's. Within this church lies a fascinating feature: a carved stone (pictured), believed to be dated to the tenth century, built into the south wall of the chancel.
Standing at approximately 19" tall, the Celtic cross is believed to have originally been an early medieval grave marker at the site, the stone (a dusky red siltstone, quartz-cemented), is from Caerfai Bay, 20km away.
The Reconstruction Process
From looking at the image of the original, it's plain to see the damage that has been sustained. The eastern arm has almost entirely disappeared, along with the eastern ring, and the knotwork on the remaining ring is faint, showing the effects of errosion.
One of the things that makes my task easier, with restoring knotwork at least, is the fact that it's usually a constitent repeating pattern. With time and experience, it becomes easier to see where the knots were going, or narrow down the options, from the finate available, to finish it. With this cross, due to the surviving western and southern arm, the visible knotwork around the ring, and the remaining knotwork of the northern arm, recreating the pattern and bringing it back from history was done with relative ease.
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The Carving Process
I carved this particular cross out of oak, one of my personal favourite woods to carve, and not just because it's the national tree of Wales! It was one of the first of my larger works, standing at over 3 foot tall, and while it brought new challenges and learning curvations, it was an absolute pleasure to carve.
The first, and arguably, biggest challenge I face with restoration is a battle between being a wood carver/ artisan, and being a historian. When working with older artifacts there can often be minor (or major) mistakes. Sometimes the knotwork doesn't line up properly, or it will be incredibly asymmetrical (and not in a good way, to my eye at least). Whether this is due to human error, the original carver's judgment lapsing for a moment, intentional distortion for artistic effect, improper repair works, or some other reason, it can sometimes lead me into a little quandry. If it's a piece I've chosen to create, and not a piece specifically comissioned as a recreation, I can sometimes get the urge to fix these issues. Should I try to create that perfect piece that the carver, perhaps, had intended to make? Whether it's the right decision or not I'm not sure, but I usually end up keeping it exactly as it was: as I always say, beauty is in the imperfections, there is a story within each of those lines. Luckily for me, this particular cross was done very well, and didn't test my OCD in the least!
Structuraly the only issue I really faced was with the ring. While a glue joint was more than enough for the centre, I didn't trust such a small surface area of the rings to contend with the twisting forces of wood (the tree always wins!). To rectify this, I decided to make a small feature on the back, inlaying some beech horizontally on all four edges, where the ring connects to the centre, to offer a little more structural stability (see image no.2).
More information
If you would like to commission a wood carving, or enquire about a recreation or restoration, please don't hesitate to get in contact with me using the 'Commission a Piece' form or the 'Contact Me' page.
Also, if you're interested, please take a look at my shop. I will be starting to put some of my carvings, furniture pieces, and wood items up for sale in the very near future, so remember to save my page and return every now and then to see what I've been up to!
Thank you.