Two pieces of twelfth-century date, from a domestic site in Askham Bryan, North Yorkshire. They have used as garden ornaments, but are now going to be taken indoors.

The photos were taken with the objects on card marked in 0.1m squares.

In the possession of the present owner since about 1981. Formerly in private ownership in a garden in the Aldwark area, York.

The head

Though worn and broken as described, it closely resembles the lost head of one the the twelfth-century figures from the W front of York Minster. See Heywood 1993, Plate 2, central figure.

These figures were taken down from the Minster in the 1960s, and when exhibited in Leeds in 1993, this one, (Heywood 1993, Cat. 28, had no head; see pp. 53, 56 and Plate p. 59). The exhibited statue has a hole bored at the top of the neck, as if the head had been fixed on in the past.

The piscina basin

This is the usual form of basin for a pillar piscina, and it would have drained down into a free-standing pillar below the capital. An example was recorded at Adel (since stolen); there the lead pipe went down into the pillar centrally, then turned at an angle into the wall.

The horizontal secondary channel suggests that the drainage had become blocked.

Grid Reference approximate only.