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Object type: Stone seat
Measurements: H. 83.8 cm (33 in); W. 87 cm (34.25 in); D. 52.7 cm (20.75 in)
Stone type: Fine-grained, cellular, dolomitic, white (10YR 8/2) limestone; Lower Magnesian Limestone, Upper Permian; closely resembles both Roman material from York, and building-stones of late-eleventh-century York Minster (from Thevesdale, west of Tadcaster).
Plate numbers in printed volume: 885-887
Corpus volume reference: Vol 3 p. 224
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The seat is made up of distinct elements: an upright monolith forming the back and sides with a semicircular internal space, 14.5 in deep, to accommodate the seat, which has a chamfered edge and a recessed vertical support. There is no carved surface decoration on the seat. The back is scabbled. The right-hand side is slightly convex, whilst the left-hand one has been dressed with diagonal tooling.
Appendix A item (stones dating from Saxo-Norman overlap period or of uncertain date).
There is no diagnostic ornament to assist in the dating of this seat, but its shape most nearly resembles the 'frith stool' at Hexham (Cramp 1984, I, 192–3, II, pls. 186–7). It is not of the same type as the seats from Lastingham (no. 10), and Bamburgh in Northumberland (Cramp 1984, I, 162–3, fig. 18), which have higher backs and slender side pieces.
Its original function may have been associated with the cathedra of a bishop or with an abbot, but the Minster, throughout the Middle Ages, offered the sanctuary of St John of Beverley, and it may have served some purpose in that field. It seems to have been placed in a corner at a later stage, to judge from the scabbling and the dressed off convex side.
Clapham 1930, 74; Pevsner 1972, 176; Cramp 1984, I, 163, 192, II, pl. 263, 1425.
