The former Augustinian Priory at Repton was converted into a school in 1557, reusing some of the priory buildings. The most substantial survival is the west range of the cloister, usually described as the former Priors' Hall with cellarage below; a two-storey rectangular building running from N to S, situated at the W end of the site close to the E end of the church of St Wystan. The W facade is 7 bays long with gables in the end bays: the E facade is of ten bays with the end bays gabled and the three central bays projecting to form an open two-storey porch with a double gable. There are dormers in the roof and an undercroft below. Construction is of rubble and coursed, squared sandstone with sandstone dressings and a plain tile roof. The stones described here are among a mass of carved and moulded material excavated in the 1880s and set in the S wall of the undercroft as a spectacular decorative display, all except for 2 chevron voussoirs, which are at the N end of the undercroft acting as supports for a framed display of tiles. Excavations of the site took place in 1883-84 (see Hope) and in the early 1920s (Thompson).

There was a monastery at Repton as early as the 7thc, traditionally founded by St David, but this was destroyed by the Danes in 873, and had no known connection with the later house of Augustinian canons, which was founded around 1153 by the grant of the parish church of St Wystan to the canons of Calke by Maud, widow of Ranulf, 4th Earl of Chester, on condition that the headquarters of the canons was moved from Calke to Repton at the first opportunity.

The opportunity came in 1172, when Maud, who had been building at Repton in the meantime, effected the transfer, and from then onwards Calke was a cell of Repton. The priory was surrendered to the king in October 1538, and was sold to Thomas Thacker. Some time afterwards the claustral buildings and the priory church were demolished by Thomas's son and heir Gilbert, apparently fearful that Queen Mary would reintroduce canons to the priory. The only substantial survival was a block which Sir John Porte bought as a lodging for the school he founded in 1557 (and which is still in operation), and it is here that the carved stones recorded below are housed.

No record was kept of the find spots of the hundreds of carved and moulded stones set in the undercroft. Of the six stones identified here as Romanesque, the four voussoirs must have come from arches: the beakhead and chevron voussoirs 2 and 3 probably dating from the 2nd quarter of the 12thc, and chevron voussoir 1 from the fourth quarter. The cusped capital may have come from a multi-shaft respond, and while multiple cusping is much rarer than mutiple scalloping it is not really scarce. Finally the corbel may not even be Romanesque; much depends on the form of the lost upper terminals of the projecting wedges.