Hogback (sculpture)

Hogbacks are stone carved Anglo-Scandinavian style sculptures from 10th- to 12th-century northern England and south-west Scotland.

This shape, and the fact that they are frequently decorated with 'shingles' on either side of the central ridge, show that they are stylised 'houses' for the dead.

The 'house' is of a Scandinavian longhouse type associated with the 'mead hall' feasting at Valhalla in pre-Christian Norse religion.

The monuments at Govan and Penrith are associated with local native British Cumbric speaking rulers of the period.

The presence of hogbacks in Scotland is likely due to the Forth-Clyde route, which connected York to Dublin.

Ireland has a single example at Castledermot, County Kildare, which is similar to two hogbacks in Ingleby Arncliffe, North Yorkshire.

The most numerous collections are the ones preserved in St Thomas's church at Brompton, North Yorkshire.

Discovered in 1867 following the restoration of the church, six were taken to Durham Cathedral Library, leaving four whole ones and fragments of others at Brompton.

An excellent and highly decorated example exists in St Peter's Church, Heysham, near Morecambe.

The stopped plait on this hogback is characterized by a series of small, separated elements with pellet fillers.

The beasts' faces and bodies are shown in profile with jaws gaping open, their legs intersecting along the base.

Cornish coped stones tend to be longer than normal hogbacks at over 2 metres in length, but shorter in height, and have an unusual hipped roof style.

The stones show both Scandinavian and local Cornish influence in their designs, indicating the inclusion of Cornwall in a "western British Viking-age sculptural tradition".