DALE ABBEY REPORT. 



thinks it may be the monument of Wm. de Horseden, Governor 

 of the Peak. Castle, 3$ Henry III. ; but seeing that the legend is 

 in Latin, the canonical language, and not Norman- French, as 

 was more usual in the case of Knights, it is probably the brass 

 of Abbot John de Horsley, who ruled 1301-1-328, and died 

 1333 — the entire inscription being.- — 



A Lombardic JD which had formed part of the legend on 

 another slab, has been picked up. 



From the fact of two of the marble fragments having been 

 found in the centre of the S.W. chapel on the floor, it is pos- 

 sible that the slab, when complete, covered the large sepulchral 

 vault beneath the centre arch, and the date 1333 will coincide 

 with the period when the arcade in that chapel was built. 



Of stained glass many fragments have been met with, but the 

 continued action of the soil and moisture has rendered it quite 

 opaque and brittle. The design of the painting can, however, 

 easily be made out. 



The find of encaustic tiles has been unusually large, and 

 affords a most interesting series of over fifty different patterns, 

 of which a large proportion are heraldic. These tiles were manu- 

 factured at Dale, and the kiln in which they were burnt was 

 found some years ago when levelling a stack yard to the west 

 of the Abbey, but has since been destroyed. In the absence 

 "of any connecting link between the benefactors of the Abbey 

 and the arms an many of the tiles, I am inclined to think that 

 most of the moulds were originally made for the monasteries of 

 Leicester and Thurgarton. The following is a tolerably complete 

 list of the heraldic tiles : — 



1. France Ancient and England Quarterly (reversed). These 

 were the Royal Arms from 1340 to 1405. 



