A collection of twelfth-century fragments assembled by the late Nigel Hudleston, said by the owner in 1999 to have been collected at High Cayton, South Stainley, near Ripon. The pieces photographed were among a large collection including quernstones. There was nothing else so elaborate as the 12^th c. pieces, which comprise three scallop capitals and one base. Following the owner's decease in 2001, the current whereabouts of these pieces last seen in the late 1990s is now unfortunately not known.

DB mentions ‘waste’ land at Chetune and Stainley, VCH vol ii, pp. 199, 304.

Hudleston 1956, 3, refers to unspecified charters in Farrer's Early Yorkshire Charters concerning gifts to Fountains Abbey of land in Cayton, including one of a gift by Serlo de Pembroke.

A deserted village is marked on the OS, but the exact location where Mr Hudleston found the stones is uncertain. In a letter of November 1999 to Elizabeth Coatsworth (CASSS fieldworker) he said he had 'Norman pillars heads and feet [that is, capitals and bases]... they were found lying about among the grassy humps of the lost Cayton village at High Cayton.'

The monastic grange at High Cayton has been examined recently by archaeologists [Heritage Gateway list entry no. 1020747, UID 34846]. No building was identified that might have had the sculpture (i.e., no hall or church); they found evidence only for fish farming and pottery making.

Cayton grange is assumed to have been ruined in Scots incursions about 1363 (VCH vol. iii, p.163).

This collection was in an outbuilding at Cayton Hall, South Stainley a village , in 1999. We were shown it (and South Stainley church) by Mr N. A. Hudleston, landowner and churchwarden. The fieldworkers were told that the collection had been mentioned to various archaeologists in the past (Richard Bailey and Jim Lang, I believe), though they did not go and see it. It came to my attention via Dr. Elizabeth Coatsworth, the CASSS investigator for this area.

In 1999, the elderly owner agreed that it would be best to make the Corpus entry anonymous, to avoid bother and disturbance. He died in 2001, and the house has a new owner who says he knows nothing about any stones (note returned to fieldworker in 2015). Hudleston's papers, largely concerning his wife's interest in folk customs, had been given to Sheffield University before his death, but the stones, apparently, have been lost sight of. The fieldworker therefore sees no reason now for the continued anonymity of this site.

The unidentified circular piece was suggested by Mr Hudleston to be parts of a font base and to have belonged to South Stainley church.

Mr Hudleston claimed that Leland had seen “hall and chapel” standing at High Cayton in 1540; however, the fieldworker has been unable to trace this reference.