348 Notes on the Church Plate of North Wiits. 
Cupid’s bow! This bears no date mark; it was given, in company 
with the caudle-cup or porringer mentioned above, in 1774. 
Two patens—those of Seagry (originally Lyneham), and West 
‘Ashton—are of Dublin make, circa 1725. With the exception of 
these and an apostle-spoon bearing the old Exeter mark and inscribed 
1666, lately given to Ramsbury, no plate bearing provincial town 
marks has been found except modern pieces of Sheffield, Birmingham, 
and Exeter; although, as has been already said, a considerable 
proportion of the Elizabethan pieces and some of the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries bear no hall marks at all, and were doubtless 
of provincial manufacture. 
Turning to flagons, the earliest in North Wilts is the very 
beautiful specimen at Heddington. This is marked 1602, but it 
was not given to the Church until 1830, and was doubtless made 
for domestic use. It is of silver-gilt covered with rich strap-work 
and embossed ornament. Next in date comes the tankard-shaped 
flagon at Wanborough, marked 1615, but given in 1638. This, 
as well as the preceding one, is very small in size, but, unlike 
it, is perfectly plain and without any ornament at all. 
Throughout the seventeenth century the flagons continue simply 
tankards, without much variation in shape, the lids low, almost flat 
on the top—the earlier examples often with the sides slightly bulging, 
as in the Bishopstone example of 1634, given in the plate; the later 
ones oftener with the sides perfectly straight, as in that of Garsden, 
of 1684. This is by no means an invariable rule, however. On 
the front they commonly bear the coat of arms of the donor, or the 
sacred monogram surrounded by rays. 
In the eighteenth century the lid became by degrees higher and 
more dome-shaped, until it blossomed out into an acorn or other 
ornament at the top, a spout grew out of the side where no spout 
had been before, the whole vessel grew less broad and massive, until 
the ugly tall attenuated flagon of the earlier half of the nineteenth 
century came into existence. 
Many of these flagons of the latter half of the seventeenth and 
beginning of the eighteenth centuries are of enormous size, weighing 
seventy or eighty ounces or more, and were often given, even to 
