The fragment comes from the centre of a shaft; there are no transverse mouldings to the panels. Originally the sides were probably the same width.

A (broad): A broad plain moulding flanks the panel. Within it at each side is an animal head terminal of a chair. The heads are identical except for the collar worn by the right-hand beast which retains a speck of red pigment upon it. The heads point upwards, with an incised elliptical eye and small button ear. The lower jaw is short and pendant. The upper jaw is long and has a triple nose-fold. The lip of the upper jaw has a double edge and what may be a fang protrudes from the right-hand beast's jowl. Between these terminals is the head and shoulder of a bearded man in half-profile. The hair fits closely to the head and is plaited, the strands being either contoured or median-incised. The cheeks, nose and brow are modelled; the thin eyebrows and mouth are incised. The oval eyes have a double outline. The beard is forked and plaited. The drapery on the shoulder lies in five concentric folds. The upper edge of each fold is hatched. On the furrowed brow is a slight trace of pigment.

B (narrow): Only the left-hand edge moulding survives: broad and plain. The neck and thrown-back head of a profile beast occupy the panel. The neck has a double outline. The head has a square-ended snout, thin mouth slit and incised circular eye. Its ear is extended into a fetter and is median-incised. Interlocking with it is a median-incised fetter band which crosses the neck to interlace with a strand above. Below the reversed snout of the beast are the remains of an asymmetrical loop in bold median-incised strand. The carving is in deep relief and punch-marks survive in the cavities. A small fix-point on the strand above the throat is in line with the incised band below.

C (broad): The whole surface is lost. A slight lump in the top right corner may be the vestige of carving.

D (narrow): This face has lost its left-hand edge. There is no clear moulding on the right but the portrait carving is inset from the edge. An oval head is frontally depicted, the chin wedge-shaped and the facial features roughly incised. The hair hangs in two scrolls, covering the ears, the right-hand lock being plaited, its strands with contoured edges. Four pendant folds beneath the chin represent drapery.

This exceptionally well cut piece is probably the model for the Second Sculptor's work on Nunburnholme 1 (see p. 38). The beast is very probably part of a beast-chain in which the animals are discretely arranged in the manner of the Folkton shafts, and the curving lines and depth of cutting derives from ninth-century Mercian animals (Lang 1978b, 148–50, fig. 8.3; Lang 1978c, 13–15), though its immediate ancestry lies in the shafts of the York Metropolitan School. The more worn of the portrait heads has scrolled tips to hanging plaited hair and should be compared with the scrolled haloes of Nunburnholme 1 and the plaque at Newburgh Priory, North Riding (Pevsner 1966, pl. 9a), as well as the curious interlocking of hair and halo in figures such as those on the Leeds Parish Church shaft, West Riding (Collingwood 1915, 212, fig. j1 on 212). Here the treatment is much more naturalistic, not only in the minor detail, but (especially in the better preserved portrait) in the half-profile pose, a rarity in Anglo-Scandinavian sculpture. The degree of modelling is also unusual; it is found only at York. The plaited beard has an Irish parallel on the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise, co. Offaly (Henry 1967, pl. 92), though the forking should be compared with the beards of the Thór figurines from Iceland and Scandinavia (Davidson 1969, 65). The chair terminals are in the style of the York Metropolitan beasts with triple nose-folds and are therefore Anglo-Scandinavian, but the tradition of zoomorphic chair terminals stretches back to pre-Viking times, as the Lastingham chair (no. 10) witnesses. An actual chair-panel with a comparable zoomorphic head, made of wood, was found in the Wood Quay excavations in Dublin (Lang 1988a, 15) (Ill. 918). The terminals appearing on each side of the head tend to confirm the interpretation of the Middleton warriors as seated on gifstols. This area of Yorkshire seems to have favoured seated secular figures on its shafts: not only Middleton 2, but Holme upon Spalding Moor 1 and Nunburnholme 1 are probably reflexes of high quality carvings such as the present shaft.