I am very familiar with st Mary Le Wigford church as I was a regular churchgoer there for about 18 years, and was on the committee that raised money for hall restoration and subsequently part of the church itself.It was always sid that King stephen tethered his horse here in the tower during fight with Maud, and subsecquently henry2 had his son crowned here and possibly himself in 1154 but this challenged by some historians but as parishioners most of us thought there may be some truth in the story who knows,if true then it would be probably the only church in England outside westminster abbey to hold a coronation

Don’t know if this is of any help…

I believe that there is a “restored” transcription in Book 1 of ‘The Roman Inscriptions of Britain’ edited by R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright pub 1965- (R.I.B 262) - the same translation as Rod gives. Both books 1 & 2 of R.I.B. (inscriptions on stones & inscriptions on other artefacts) should be available at all good reference libraries and a summarised version is to be found online at all the doubleyous dot roman-britain dot org

The surviving text of the Roman inscription reads - DIS M(A)NIBVS NOMINI SAC(R)I BRVSCI FILI CIVIS SENONE ET CARSSO VNAE CONIVGIS EIVS ET QUINTI F… - Which translates as something like ‘In the memory of the departed,’ or ‘In the hands of the Gods, the name of Sacer, a son of Bruscus, citizen of the Senones and Carssouna his wife and Quintus h(is son)’ - the rest of the stone has been broken off at some point in time, but it’s pretty safe to assume that the ‘F…’ is FILI as Roman tombstone inscriptions do tend to follow a certain formula. The tribe of the Senones were located in what was NW central Gaul, around the region of what is now the modern town of Sens in Burgundy - does this mean that there are some yellowbellies out there related to these settlers in Lindum Colonia(i.e. French by any other name!) ?

The full text of the Anglo Saxon inscription is believed to be, according to R.I.B., Eirtig me let wircean and fios godian Criste to lofe and sancte Marie XP (the XP, although carved on the stone as a ‘+’ with a ‘P’ as the middle vertical stroke, is believed to be the Chi-Rho symbol, used especially by the early Christian church) and the text is read from the bottom line to the top rather than the usual way around.

As far as I can find out, argument ranges over whether this is a dedication stone regarding the endowment of an earlier church or part of the building thereof in the late C10 (during the period of the Danish occupation), or for the Norman build; evidence has been found that the tower was built onto an earlier nave (as usual with Lincoln churches, I’ve also found some speculation as to whether this is a continuation of use of the site from the Roman period although excavations opposite the church in the early 70s indicate that the settlement of Wigford dates from the C10-11 pre conquest…). I wonder how many of the stones used in the church were robbed out from the remains of Roman Lindum?

Meanwhile, from more recent times, there is a brief account of £10 being donated towards the “thorough” restoration and enlargement work being carried out to the church during 1871, in the ‘Reports and Papers of The Architectural and Archaeological Societies of the Counties of Lincoln and Northampton’. I’ve also found what might be the illustration you mentioned, Rod; it’s in the 1879 edition of the above journal, along with a discussion, pp16-17, and the stone merits another illustration and a couple of paragraphs in the 1844 edition of ‘The Archaeological Journal’ of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, pp14-16 - both are available online at archive dot org.

As clear as mud, as always!
Kate

Warmest Regards,

Chris.