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Six Decades Ago, a Boy Stole Medieval Tiles From an English Monastery. He Just Returned the Illicit Souvenirs
Key takeaways
- The broken clay tiles were kept in a toffee tin for nearly six decades.
- Recently, White—now 68 years old—was sorting through his belongings and he came across the tin.
- And I thought, ‘This has got to be the best bet.’”
The broken clay tiles were kept in a toffee tin for nearly six decades. English Heritage In the 1960s, 9-year-old Simon White visited a medieval English monastery with his family. Encouraged by his father, White pried up some of the historic site’s 700-year-old floor tiles to keep as souvenirs. At home, he stowed them in an old toffee tin for safekeeping. And there the tiles stayed, forgotten, for nearly 60 years.
Recently, White—now 68 years old—was sorting through his belongings and he came across the tin. At first, he couldn’t remember where the red clay tile fragments, decorated with a beastly face and a dragon, were from.
“Fortunately, my mother kept very detailed diaries written in tiny, spindly handwriting,” White tells ITV News’ Mark Gough. “So I read them again … and I was able to pinpoint one day in 1967, a summer’s day, when we came to Wenlock Priory. And I thought, ‘This has got to be the best bet.’”