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Incised design of a cross with a naturalistic vine leaf forming each arm, surrounded by a regular pattern of vine leaves and fruit. At the base the cross shaft divides and issues from the mouths of a pair of grotesque heads, one with either pointed ears or horns.
It is a beautiful example, and of very unusual character, and consists of a basement built across between the angle of the choir and north transept aisles, and the base of the adjoining pier in the north transept. Upon this basement lies a massive slab of hard freestone, which bears an incised design of great intricacy. This is spanned by a low segmental arch, richly moulded. The jamb mouldings are furnished with bases. Four images, which stood on brackets and were protected by canopies, flanked the arch, two on either side of the tomb. The wall is finished with a coping in two slopes; the upper one is returned in the centre and formed into small gables. These have unfortunately been destroyed. The image brackets and canopies have also been a good deal injured; otherwise, the tomb is in remarkably good preservation. There is nothing upon this tomb to indicate in whose memory it was erected, but “tradition, always ready to account for everything,” has assigned it to Ælfwald, king of Northumbria, who was murdered in the vicinity of, and is known to have been buried in, the church at Hexham in 788. There appear to be no other grounds for the appropriation than that this is the only tomb in the church which is befitting a royal personage. It is, of course, long posterior to the time of Ælfwald, and was probably erected shortly before 1290. [Hexham Abbey, Monograph by C C Hodges, 1888, p.51 & Pl.33]
Discussed in AA article [HEXAB5096.9] by Peter F Ryder.