This ninth volume of the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture maintains the series' high standards of recording that includes a consideration of all available manuscript and pictorial sources as well as the analysis of the sculptures. Little documentary evidence survives for Cheshire and Lancashire, so the contextual discussion is more than usually reliant on the stones themselves and archaeological material and excavation results (for example for Heysham). The collection, dominated by crosses, is a diverse group and not well known, apart from the Sandbach stone. The Viking-age sculpture is the more plentiful and widely distributed, although there is a significant collection of Anglian-period material. Most sculpture is of sandstone and some remains vulnerable to the weather, so there is an element of rescue recording here. Sample size of course determines the extent of the interpretation. The smaller Anglian collection is firmly set in a monastic setting (but did not include all minsters), although, for example, the sculptures' different character and clustering in the Lune valley and in Cheshire emphasises the political division of the region between Northumbria and Mercia. The distinctiveness of the motifs and the use of Latin and the vernacular place the Lune valley work within a Northumbrian monastic network (especially with west Yorkshire) whereas the Cheshire group (Sandbach in particular) points to contacts with innovative continental art as well as an Insular, Columban connection. One of the major successes of the Corpus is that sculpture has been reintegrated into the mainstream study of early medieval ecclesiastical history and archaeology, here shown in a reconstruction of the various religious and political networks throughout the early Middle Ages. It is also illustrated by the clear interdependence of sculpture and metalwork so that the stone crosses had the appearance of pieces of metallic and polychrome liturgical jewellery. In contrast, the larger collection of Viking-age sculpture, while still mainly interpreted as of ecclesiastical or funerary provenance (although there was a secular, high-status element), allows a discussion of different workshops, some of which were related to cultural zones such as around the Irish Sea. Being of tenth- and eleventh-century date, this sculpture contributes to the evidence for the intensification of the economy and town growth in particular, with Meols (also in the Anglian period), Dublin and Chester playing a key role. The location of this material also shows that some sculpture was not just church-based but was used as territorial and route markers and allows us, for example, to see that the region's east–west connections were not dominated by the Ribble valley. This is an impeccably researched and produced volume which makes an important contribution to our understanding of the ecclesiastical and socio-economic history of the north-west.