Part of a tapering shaft, probably originally octagonal (see below under no. 2), but now split lengthways into two sections, each with six faces. Two of these have been recut at right angles to each other, but decoration survives on one broad face and two narrow chamfered faces, and also on the remains of another face, original width uncertain. The labelling of the faces of nos. 1 and 2 is explained in Fig. 18.

A (?narrow) : The left-hand part of this chamfered face has been dressed back. The surviving edge moulding is rolled. The panel contains well-ordered and modelled median-incised interlace, damaged on the left, with glides between alternately facing knots of half pattern C.

B (broad) : The neat rolled edge mouldings are shared with the faces on either side. The tapering panel contains a group of animals in high relief. (i) The top is broken, affecting part of the head of the topmost beast. It is a long-limbed quadruped that raises its right foreleg in salute. The feet have hocks and hooves. The long neck is attenuated in a graceful curve, with parallel ribbed bands conveying taut muscles. The line of the neck, back and rump is curvilinear and accommodates a flat raised wing with a thin moulding along its upper straight edge. The feline head has the remains of a curled mane at the top right and an incised slanted eye. The ear is small and rounded. Held in the mouth is a serpent whose tail loops to meet the saluting foot and whose head loops up to the beast's ear. (ii) Between the animal's feet are the remains of a pair of sprawling lizard-like bipeds viewed from above, though their touching heads are adorsed in profile. Their long necks have been ribbed longitudinally. Their legs, which lie close to the edge of the panel, are raised in salute, whilst the lower limbs overlap. The legs appear attached in an inorganic way through broad plates superimposed on the creatures' backs. The torsos taper from a bulbous chest, the right-hand beast having a series of incised nicks on the edge adjacent to the moulding. The tails are entwined in an open loop, the tips hanging vertically at the sides with bulbous tassel-like terminals ribbed at the neck. (iii) These tails are bitten by a pair of affronted canine animals, their heads turned back. Their long, mule-like ears are median-incised and overlap. The legs are broken away. The left-hand animal wears a thin collar; the one on the right a long loose strap across its shoulder. The biting jaws are treated differently: on the left the upper jaw is over the tail, but on the right it is the lower jaw. The creatures are well-modelled and plastic. There are traces of gesso.

C (narrow) : A chamfered face between bold roll mouldings contains a run of deeply cut plant-scroll. It is a simple scroll with triple ridged nodes from which emerge a pendant shootlet with a drop leaf, a spray of two stumpy leaves at the centre, and a continuing fleshy stem that climbs. Some of the shootlets bear trilobed berry clusters on stalks. There are traces of gesso.

D (uncertain) : The right-hand edge is dressed off. The roll moulding survives only on the left and is expanded at intervals transversely to divide the face into a series of oval or figure-of-eight shaped panels. In the spandrels of the moulding's junctions are circular recesses. Four panels survive, the uppermost being badly damaged; the three lower ones each contain a pair of human faces, frontally depicted but inclined at 45 degrees. The facial features are detailed with some modelling. The eyes are lentoid with moulded rims, the noses broad and the brow and hair-lines pronounced. One of the faces in the middle panel may have been bearded; one has long hair and another is possibly nimbed.

The other two sides of no. 1 have been ruthlessly dressed at right-angles to one another.

See Melsonby 2 (St James the Great)