Red earthenware tile fragment covered with white slip. With decoration incised and carved through the slip of a Gospel scene from the childhood of Christ (Adoration of the Magi). Said to have come from Tring Church in Hertfordshire. English or French, made about 1330.

Left hand top corner fragment from a rectangular tile of red earthenware with decoration cut away and incised through a coating of white slip under a clear glaze. Depicting a crowned king, holding up his right hand. To his left is a figure carrying a chalice-shaped vessel filled with small round objects.

Gift from Mrs Walter Butcher

Nominal file: MA/1/B3698 Butcher, W. Mrs.
Gift from Mrs. Walter Butcher of Sussex who says that many years ago part of a similar tile was dug up when her husband's father made a tunnel under a public path from his garden in Tring to a paddock beyond the path.

The British Museum analysed their tiles in 2007/8 by thermoluminescence dating and the results said that they were made between 500 and 800 years ago.

Similar tiles are in the British Museum which were acquired from a sale at Sothebys on 3 March 1922 and were described as:
'probably came from the Saxon church of St Peter ad Murum at Bradwell juxta mare, Essex, as they had been for many years in the possession of the Rector of that parish, and were acquired at the sale of his effects'.

The subject matter consists of apocryphal and Gospel scenes from the childhood of Christ. The scene represented on this fragment is the 'Adoration of the Magi'.

C.119-1930