Giant's Grave, Penrith (Background)

The ‘Giant’s Grave’ in St Andrew’s churchyard, Penrith, is in fact an important collection of Viking-Age monuments.

The evocatively named ‘Giant’s Grave’ is an assemblage of six individual monuments, all of which date from the tenth century. There are two tall and impressive free-standing crosses and four ‘hogback’ stones, a distinctive type of Viking-Age monument. 

The stones of the Giant’s Grave remain striking even though they are now weathered, and some decorative features can still be detected. The south-eastern hogback features well-preserved tegulations (house tiles) on the roof, free-rings and spiral scroll interlace; on the hogback diagonally opposite, the spirals turn into a serpent. A figure can also be detected standing on the snake, as shown in earlier drawings. Hogback monuments are a classic Viking-Age type that are mostly found in areas of Scandinavian settlement in northern England and southern Scotland. 

Otherwise, the decoration has little to suggest Scandinavian influence, instead revealing the continuation of styles from the pre-Viking period and fresh connections within Britain. The cross-shafts have round lower sections, a style that was popular in the English Midlands, although there may have been a local development of the type. One of the panels on the eastern cross appears to show an animal enmeshed in the interlace, and perhaps a human figure. The double row of free-ring interlace has parallels in southern Scotland (such as Whithorn and its environs) and the same style is also found on the western cross opposite. The cross-heads are only partly preserved but they appear to derive from pre-Viking styles. 

The churchyard contains another cross of a similar date, which is known as the ‘Giant’s Thumb’. Part of its cross-head survives, which features a ring. The inspiration for such cross-heads (often now called ‘Celtic crosses’) lies ultimately in Ireland and the Hebrides – this was a style imported to northern England during the Viking Age. There is a Crucifixion scene on one face of this cross (now very worn) and a figure is depicted on the opposite side. Other early sculpture from Penrith includes a fine plant-scroll of eighth- or ninth-century type, which indicates that there was a pre-Viking church here.

The ‘Giant’s Grave’ assemblage has been re-grouped at least once, although the western cross appears to be in its original location. The monuments may have originally marked individual graves, or been associated with a family. There is a report of a burial being discovered under them, along with a sword, in the seventeenth century. One context for the Viking-Age sculpture in the region is the conversion to Christianity of Scandinavian settlers. Their earlier funerary practices (including lavish warrior burials) were replaced by burials in churchyards and patronage of sculptors. Meanwhile, the region saw political turbulence: Penrith had been part of the Northumbrian kingdom, which collapsed during the late ninth century. The kingdom of Strathclyde expanded southwards into the vacuum, becoming known as ‘Cumbria’ in the process. Such changes in control and landownership may have stimulated the patronage of new funerary monuments at existing churches.

Finally, why is the assemblage known as the Giant’s Grave? By the late seventeenth century, the crosses were said to lie the length of a giant apart. The giant became conflated with a certain Sir Hugh or Ewen Cesarius, legendarily a monster-slayer who dwelt in caves nearby. There is an account of Dr Page, a Penrith schoolmaster in the 1590s, meeting an antiquary who linked the Giant’s Grave with this warrior. The name ‘Ewen’ reflects the Brittonic (or Welsh) personal name ‘Owain’. There are several Owains who may be associated with Penrith and its locality. One possibility is Owain ab Urien Rheged, famed in medieval Welsh poetry; a later option is Owain ap Dyfnwal, king of Strathclyde/Cumbria and likely a participant in the epic battle of Brunanburh (937). Whether or not it is correct to associate these Owains with the Giant’s Grave, the folklore is a tantalising hint that memories of the Cumbrian kingdom (and Penrith’s place within it) lingered centuries after the polity’s demise.

Text by Fiona Edmonds

Photo of the monuments by Chris Donaldson

Richard N. Bailey and Rosemary Cramp, The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, Volume II: Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North-of-the-Sands (1988) Viewable online: https://ascorpus.ac.uk [Penrith 04, 05, 06, 07, 08 and 09].

Richard N. Bailey, Viking Age Sculpture in Northern England (London, 1980).

Tim Clarkson, The Men of the North: the Britons of Southern Scotland (Edinburgh, 2010).

Tim Clarkson, Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxons in the Viking Age (Edinburgh, 2014).

W. G. Collingwood, ‘The Giant’s Thumb’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2nd ser. 20 (1920), 53­–65.

W. G. Collingwood, ‘The Giant’s Grave’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2nd ser. 23 (1923), 115­–28. 

Fiona Edmonds, ‘The Expansion of the Kingdom of Strathclyde’, Early Medieval Europe 23 (2015), 43‒66.

George Watson, ‘Note on Sandford’s History of Cumberland’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 1st ser. 11 (1911), 290‒5.

‘The Giant’s Grave’, https://www.parishofpenrith.org.uk/giantsgrave.htm (accessed 28th June, 2024).