JACOBEAN RELICS FOUND

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1062, 28 August 1930, Page 12

JACOBEAN RELICS FOUND

Jacobean relics o£ great interest, including fourteen pieces of kitchen pottery, have been discovered recently in the foundations of a seventeenth century house in Cloth Fair, Smithfield, says a London newspaper. The find, which is described by experts as “very rare,” owing to the fact that so many pieces of the period have seldom been found together in such good condition, was made while the foundations of the building were being strengthened. it. includes: Silver-bound drinking or powder horn, clay pipes, clay wig curler, pipkin, colander, pie dish, bread dish, galley pot. beaker and plates. Mr. Paul Paget, of Messrs. Seeley ancl Paget, the firm of architects engaged in restoring the house, said: ‘‘Last December, while making the new foundations beneath the cellar, we came on a small chamber, bricked about, and with a plaster floor, where we found a drinking horn and a piece of pottery. Both objects were said by experts to be early seventeenth century. I.ast Friday we determined to clear out the chamber thoroughly. In the midst of a mass of rubble, all earth-encrusted, we found the rest of the things. None are later than 1660, while the earliest is about 1590.” Of brown, yellow, or green glaze, the vessels are in many cases iu excellent condition. They are simple in design, and there is little pattern on their smoke-blackened exteriors. It is probable that they will shortly be on view at the London Museum.

! It was announced last year that the ■ picturesque Jacobean house beneath i which the discoveries were made had I been saved at the last moment and j was to be restored. It had already ! been the subject of dangerous struej ture notices from the City Corporation, j On the site of the lay cemetery of j the Monastery of St.. Bartholomew, the house was built ill 1614.

RARE FIND AT SMITHFIELD

SECRET ROOM UNDER CELLAR