348 Notes on the Church Plate of North Wilts. 



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 1 684. 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 



