In the nineteeth century ceramic historians believed that medieval decorative tiles threw more light on the tastes and preoccupations of early craftsmen and their patrons than did earthenware vessels. Against this intellectual background and that of the Gothic Revival (before the Victorian church restorations) Mrs Frances Parker compiled several volumes of tile-tracings which were supplemented by her grand daughter, Mrs Irene Hore.

The Victorian romantic passion for medieval studies is exemplified by the number of contemporaries that helped collect the tracings of medieval paving tiles.

Some of these people were collectors with connections with the Ashmolean, Oxford (Greville J. Chester, Percy Manning and Robert Warren Hall), others became movers and shakers at national level in the nineteenth century. (Augustus W. Franks, Llewelyn Jewitt and Albert Way). While Mr Maw and W. H. Goss were both hugely influential as ceramic manufacturers. Many incumbents of the parish churches also helped collect information (see article below).

Each painting of the medieval paving tile is actual size and is mounted on a quarto sized sheet of paper in the original archive. The locations are identified mainly in Irene Hore's handwriting on the background sheet. Each has her own unique reference number.

Go to the digital version of the article published in The Journal of British Archaeology Association, 2000.