A Discovery

This little discovery has made my day. It manages to combine all the bits and bobs of history that I most love – tiles, monks and old ruins.

The figure depicted on this tile is quite probably a monk. I found it in the minature museum at St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury. The tile was produced locally at Clowes Wood. It was made probably in c.1170, though possibly as late as the thirteenth century. The tile had its design incised upon wet clay, painted with white slip and then glazed in a green-yellow colour.