Every new volume of the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture is a real gift for sculpture scholars and Anglo-Saxonists, and a reminder of the need for careful documentation of material culture and the value of scholarly collaboration. The present book is already the tenth volume in the series that was inaugurated in 1984 with the first volume by Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp, who, with never failing energy and enthusiasm, still serves as the general editor of the publication series and remains the heart and soul of the Corpus project at large at Durham University.

The present volume, the work of Richard Bryant with substantial help from historian Michael Hare and other experts, fills an important geographical gap in the Midlands after the publication of seven northern and two southern volumes. It covers the western part of the former Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia (largely the earlier kingdoms of the Hwicce and Magonsæte), or the modern (pre-1974) counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. The editor carefully catalogues a total of 271 pieces of sculpture from 103 sites, the vast majority of them (164 pieces) from Gloucestershire, an area which, in all likelihood, produced larger quantities of sculpture, including the influential ‘Cropthorne’ group, and which has also received more scholarly attention than the rest of the study area. According to the authors, Gloucestershire and to a lesser degree Worcestershire have also been more systematically catalogued than the other counties, and as a result the latter are more likely to yield additional sculptural discoveries in the future. The material covered here features some well-known sites (Deerhurst, Gloucester, Worcester) and intriguing monuments, such as the elegant eighth-century Bisley Lypiatt cross, probably the earliest sculpture of the region, the small skeuomorphic Newent ‘stone gospel book’ and the polychrome Virgin and Child carving of Deerhurst St Mary with its strong Byzantine resonance, just to name a few. Much of the study area, however, has before now never been systematically surveyed, and thus a number of the monuments had so far been undocumented. They represent rare artistic evidence for the once thriving culture of Mercia, especially during the time of the Mercian supremacy, which experienced a ‘sudden explosion of stone carving’ (p 46) in the late eighth to early ninth centuries, during the reigns of Offa and his successor, Coenwulf.

Besides the catalogue of sculpture, Bryant and Hare present one of the longest introductions to any Corpus volume, with detailed essays on historical background (Hare with Heighway), regional geology (Bristow and Freshney) and sculptural production (distribution, forms, ornament, iconography) and archaeological context (Bryant), although regrettably no essay on inscriptions. Uniquely, the book also offers a separate chapter on the surviving ninth-century polychrome paint at Deerhurst (Howe) as well as an appendix of fonts and stoups, a topic of much interest recently. Like all the Corpus volumes, the book is meticulously edited, with ample photographic material, albeit sometimes on a small scale (for example, figs 58, 449, 479, 584). The online version of the Corpus at <http://www.ascorpus.ac.uk/> may present a long-term solution to the presentation and accessibility of images as well as the quick navigation of the catalogue entries. The online database also contains the introductory essays of the printed volumes (currently only volumes I–II), Rosemary Cramp’s general methodological introduction to the series and its terminology (Grammar of Anglo-Saxon Ornament), as well as the bibliographies of volumes I–VI. It is hoped that it will soon be expanded to cover all the published volumes, ideally with notices of new discoveries and scholarly contributions.

The sculptural material surveyed in the Western Midlands volume poses a series of research questions, some proposed by the authors but not fully explored – for example, the relationship of sculpture to documented and undocumented minster sites, the function of high crosses, the development of fonts and the existence of an independent Mercian artistic tradition arising in the late Anglo-Saxon period as a reaction to Scandinavian influence.

As the first systematic sculptural catalogue of the region, Bryant and Hare’s volume is an essential starting point for the evaluation and re-evaluation of the cultural and artistic connections of western Mercia with Wessex, Cumbria/Northumbria and Wales, aided by previous Corpus volumes as well as the recently completed catalogue of the early medieval sculpture of Wales. The much-awaited volumes covering the East Midlands and the former kingdom of East Anglia will complete the picture of the development of Mercian sculpture and of early medieval England in general.