Friday 2 March 2018

Elizabethan chalice





In nearly 1000 posts I’ve taken care not to appeared in a picture myself, but, for a second post running, Steven Wood has provided me with the top picture here.  When he sent me the picture I posted last time, it was not the flagons which grabbed my attention but the chalice (150 years older than the flagons – the hallmark is 1593).

I wondered whether it might be a piece of ‘exchanged silver’, and, after inspecting it, I’m not sure it isn’t, but it is certainly a very fine piece with exquisite engravings and hardly any signs of wear.  Steven provided me with a 1914 survey of church plate which also admires it highly but which suggests it may have originally been intended as a beaker for secular use.

I’d love to know if it was made for the church in Elizabeth I’s time, and still suspect it might be a remodelling then from items of the church’s pre-Reformation plate, but it may have come into the church’s possession later, and may indeed be of secular origin.  I have no idea what the H ND (with *) on its base signifies. 

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