A selection of medieval carved stone crosses have gone on display at Malew Church.

The display is part of a celebration of a ’long campaign’ of restorations and improvements which have been carried out at Malew Church, which included improved accessibility, a re-display of the war memorial, and a new Southern 100 memorial.

The new display includes three crosses from the church’s previously inaccessible gallery, along with one which had been discovered in the course of repairs to the exterior of the church.

A fifth was found during archaeological investigations around a Keeill (Manx Gaelic for chapel) in the north of the parish.

All are now on show in a display which also includes the parish church silver.

Pride of place goes to the largest cross, which is carved with a range of interlace patterns - typical of the Norse crosses for which the island is famous - and scenes from the saga of Sigurd, a famous hero from Scandinavian mythology.

Despite the worn condition of the stone it is still possible to see Sigurd slaying the giant dragon Fafnir, and then roasting the beast’s heart over a fire.

MNH inspector of ancient monuments Andy Johnson commented: ’We are delighted to have been able to help in the process of bringing these important artefacts to a place within the church where they are more accessible to all, and for them to be displayed together with other artefacts, both old and new, that are uniquely relevant to the parish.’

He continued: ’In recent years we have published a formal Statement of Significance emphasising both the importance of the crosses as historical artefacts, and also their continued cultural value to the various communities within which they are located around the island.

’New academic research has been published in books focused on the entire corpus of more than 200 crosses that have been found here, and also the latest thinking on the runic inscriptions that are carved on so many of the stones.

’We have also carried out a laser survey of all of the crosses, which has allowed thousands of people to visit these unique monuments online, besides providing us as their guardians with a baseline condition survey against which we can check for long term decay or damage.’

All 200 crosses can be seen online, including as 3D models at: sketchfab.com/manxnationalheritage/collections/manx-crosses

future projects

MNH is also currently working with several other parishes on similar projects, including re-display of the crosses at Andreas, where, as a result of other improvements taking place at the church, the parish donated the old floor-slabs to MNH for use on heritage sites around the island.

Talking about the flagstones, Mr Johnson said: ’Red sandstone is a really scarce commodity on the Island today as there are no operational quarries around Peel where it occurs.

’Ongoing repairs to the curtain wall at Peel Castle have emphasised just how important a building material it now is for us when conservation repairs of this type need to be undertaken.

’We have previously been able to source some red sandstone from a local recycling business, but the gift of this material makes a huge difference in what we are able to achieve, and we are enormously grateful to Andreas parish for their forethought and generosity.’