The Blackmore Vale May '21

Then and Now with Roger Guttridge

The tiny parish of Todber (population 140) doesn’t have too many claims to fame but it does have something unique in Dorset – the county’s oldest stone cross.

The cross’s history is not straightforward, though, as revealed by Alfred Pope in The Old Stone Crosses of Dorset, published in 1906.

Pope includes a photograph of the complete cross standing proudly in the churchyard.

Todber’s Saxon cross in 1906

He explains that the shaft actually comprised two sculpted stones that were discovered in the churchyard by a former Rector of Stour Provost with Todber ‘some years since’.

‘It may at one time have formed parts of a Saxon cross and have been cut by Saxon monks,’ he says.

‘The cross in its present form is quite modern, having been made up and placed in its present position in 1889.’

The lower part of the Todber cross has been kept inside the church since 1983

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Dr Colley March, an expert on Runic and Saxon sculpted designs, told Pope that the two fragments were ‘of early date, perhaps even of the eighth

century, and that without doubt the carving represents the “true vine” that is Christ’.

Runic crosses are relatively common in Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland but Pope was unable to find another of this type in Dorset.

‘In the lower fragment one sees a repeated cross with vineal coils, and within the coils a vine leaf is discernible,’ he writes.

‘The upper fragment is of the same type and may have come from the side of the same cross.’

Today Todber’s cross is in two pieces once again. The cross itself and the top part of the shaft stand shyly against the church wall.

At the request of Dorset’s archaeological department, Always free - subscribe here