With the South-west England volume the Corpus completes its survey of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, covering sculpture in Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire. Its western boundary raises issues, fully addressed in this volume, concerning the immediately post-Roman period, the survival of British Christianity and the extent of Irish influence in the region. For the eighth century onwards the historical context is richly provided for by the ideals of Alfred, and his legacy, and the ecclesiastical patronage of Aethelstan, enriched by his political influence and close continental contacts. These cultural continuities provided the background to the reforms of the later tenth century under Dunstan, a native of Somerset, and Aethelwold, a native of Winchester. It is not surprising therefore that this interrogation of more than 200 pieces of stone carving at more than 100 locations makes absorbing reading. An introductory chapter provides a fully referenced account of the historical background. The general account of the regional geology and the individual catalogue entries by C. R. Bristow and B. C. Worssam maintain the high level of expertise which we have now come to expect of the Corpus. A chapter on how the topography of the region may have affected Anglo-Saxon settlement, economic strength and distribution of sculpture, is particularly helpful for a region so varied in its terrain. This chapter raises interestingly the perennial problem of the methods of transportation of large blocks of stone, with the likely use of Roman routes and water ways. It is suggested, reasonably, that ease of transport may account for the composite nature of many cross-shafts. The chapter on earlier research in the south-west includes an account of substantial work done in the eighties listing and evaluating monuments in the region by, respectively, Sally Foster, Dominic Tweddle and Steven Plunkett. Tweddle's work also formed a substantial part of South-east England, volume iv of the Corpus. It is admirable that sound research, listing and evaluating sculpture, eventually finds a place in what David Wilson in his preface aptly describes as the ‘permanent and complete records’ of the Corpus. The analysis of the ornamental repertoire includes the transition in foliate ornament from the inhabited vine-scrolls of Northumbria and Mercia to the lush acanthus-derived ornament that dominates later Anglo-Saxon manuscript illumination. The evidence for that transition is described and placed with the unique authority of the author with special reference to the high quality carving on the cross-shaft at Colyton, Devon. The ongoing debate on the placement of the much more subdued but equally distinctive flat ribbon animal ornament regarded as forming part of a coherent group of sculptures is skilfully reviewed by Cramp in an even-handed way. Both Plunkett and Tweddle consider the style to be a revival rather than a survival of Celto-Saxon traditions but Cramp points to some of the difficulties, using as a case history the comparatively well-known fragment of a panel at Colerne, Wiltshire, here dated to the eighth/ninth century.

It is typical of the author's approach that in the chapter on monument types the section on fonts which ‘have not occurred in this series before’ provides as extensive review of the requirements of the baptismal rite in the Anglo-Saxon Church. But it is in the review of the figural imagery that one has a dramatic sense of new material and reappraisal. The author's wide-ranging excursion on the meaning of angels in the thought and art of the early Middle Ages provides a necessary context for the discussion in the catalogue of the glum backward glance of the flying angel at Winterbourne Steepleton, Dorset (the cover illustration). This compelling almost three-dimensional image is surely one of the finest works of Anglo-Saxon art, dated here to the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries. It can, of course, be compared to the two figures of angels at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, and to the regiment of angels in the contemporary manuscripts, but this is surely an instance of a piece of sculpture in its own right, largely independent of its analogies, and which might be supposed to be part of a composition even more ambitious than that of such conventional scenes as the majestas or ascension suggested here. One must also single out the figure sculpture at Congresbury, Somerset, site of a monastery given by King Alfred to Asser, with a place name that contains the name of a Celtic saint, Cyngar. Fragments of sculpture were discovered there in 1995. The history of the site, and the function of the sculpture, has been the subject of a wide-ranging full study but the discussion is taken further here. The fragments preserve two large-scale expressive heads of haloed figures set in architectural fames, one of Christ identified by a cross-nimbus, and part of the draped body from the waist down of a related figure. Cramp points to the technical finish and monumentality of the work. To this new find can be added a fragment of sculpture of unknown origin associated with Dowlish Wake, Somerset, and recently (2004) sold at auction to an anonymous purchaser. The fragment preserves the head, right shoulder and central chest area of a figure. The surfaces are in very good condition. The impassive features are reminiscent of the Winterbourne figure but here the wide-open drilled eyes confront the viewer in contrast to the enigmatically lidded eyes of the Dorset sculpture. Adjacent is a part of an inscription which identifies the figure as the Apostle Peter. John Higgitt's work on the imagery of St Peter informs the author's discussion of the iconography, and Higgitt, as the epigrapher for the volume, points to the difficulty of dating the strikingly angular forms of the letters. It is with sadness that one has to record the untimely death of John Higgitt whose range of expertise has enhanced so many volumes of the Corpus. This particular volume gives him great scope, both in his masterly introductory review of the inscriptions, and in the relevant catalogue entries, notably for the seventh-century British inscriptions at Wareham, Dorset, and discussion of the literary records for the Glastonbury pyramids and for a lost verse titulus displayed on a church at Glastonbury built by the legally minded King Ine of Wessex.

All in all this volume is a remarkable achievement, a further tribute to the organisational drive and rigorous scholarship of the author, coupled with the now very experienced editorial skills of Derek Craig. As is so often the case the wealth of the written record of sites of ecclesiastical importance does not coincide with the presence of sculpture and the historical framework has to support as well as inform the dating of the sculpture. But Cramp has demonstrated clearly that the sculpture of this region has a hitherto unperceived equivalent wealth in terms of the craftsmanship, scale and quality of its sculpture. In the history of later Anglo-Saxon art the sculpture of south-west England must now be considered not as a low-grade by-product, but as central to the understanding of what has rightly been described as one of the greatest periods of English art.