Nichol's Stone (Do No Murder)

Nicholas Carter, a 55-year-old farmer from Bedale, was murdered as he rode home from Leyburn market after selling cattle. Farm labourer Leonard Wilkinson was arrested, convicted after an 11-minute jury deliberation, and hanged. The Grade II listed stone stood beside the A684 for nearly two centuries until a car crashed into it in the snow in January 2018, breaking it apart; it's unclear from sources found so far whether it has since been repaired. CONDITION LIKELY OUT OF DATE: Historic England's own listing (1131466, 'Nichol's Stone, Akebar', Grade II, listed 1987) describes it as an extant standing memorial with a full physical description (sandstone slab, about 1m high, 300mm wide, rounded top), not as lost. Separately, a Richmondshire Today social-media post about the 2018 crash states the stone 'was restored to its upright position and cemented in place' afterwards, and implies an earlier incident in the 1970s not covered above. Taken together this suggests the 'Lost — known only from records' condition set on this entry may need revisiting - worth checking directly. STORY DISCREPANCY: Historic England's listing text gives a different account of who killed whom - it describes 'a local farmer, who...saw a local cattle dealer driving some beasts to Leyburn Market and waylaid him on the way home, killing him for the money' (farmer as killer, cattle dealer as victim), and adds that the killer 'was the last man to be hanged at York' - a claim that doesn't sit well with the historical record of later York executions and may itself be local folklore. This is the reverse of the roles given above (Nicholas Carter as the farmer-victim, Leonard Wilkinson the labourer-killer) and hasn't been reconciled - worth checking the original 1826 assize record directly rather than treating either version as settled.