The products of a medieval tile kiln at Bawsey, King's Lynn

In 1843 Daniel Gurney, Esq., F.S.A., discovered the site of a medieval kiln at Bawsey, near King's Lynn in Norfolk. It is known that local tradition had preserved the memory of such a kiln, because the Rev. J. H. Bloom, writing a history of Castle Acre, which was published in 1843 before he knew of the discovery of the site, remarked that tradition said that the priory of Castle Acre possessed a kiln at Bawsey near Lynn. John Gough Nichols, writing two years later in 1845, describes the discovery as follows: ‘Near Lynn in Norfolk was a manufactory of tiles which occur at various places in that neighbourhood. They are of the ordinary form but small, about 41⁄2 inches square, and generally embossed in relief, no second material being inserted to restore a smooth surface.... A considerable quantity of these tiles, together with the kiln in which they were made, has been found at Bawsey near Lynn, and many of them have been placed over the fireplace of the inhabited room at Rising Castle, to which they were presented by Daniel Gurney, Esq., F.S.A. of North Runcton.’ The tiles at Castle Rising are still there, others recovered at the same time are in King's Lynn Museum, and still others found their way to the British Museum in 1855 as the gift of Sir Henry Ellis

Acre · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Gunpowder · Kiln · Square (algebra · Archaeological Research and Protection · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Historical Studies · History

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