Ango Saxon sculpture is divided into two main periods, that before the 9th century Danish invasion and that after King Alfred (871-899). The period covers a period from the earliest Christian crosses, and includes stone decorative elements in churches depicting grotesque animals and fiugures intertwined with vine tendrils.
Examples of the friezes and fragments of stone carvings from the 8th century Anglo Saxon monastery at Breedon-on-the-Hill.
The Hedda stone, in Peterborough Cathedral, dated to about 870AD. It contains the carved figures of twelve monks, and is thought to represent those killed in Danish raids.
Striking animal reliefs, carved around 800 CE, are among the finest surviving examples of Anglo-Saxon sculpture from the Mercian kingdom. They were originally part of the 9th-century monastery at Breedon-on-the-Hill and are now set into the walls of the later Augustinian priory church of St Mary and St Hardulph.
