Amongst the encaustic relics of a later date, family arms, impaled and quartered, as well as scrolls, rebuses, and ciphers, are very frequent. In the present instance, the tile exhibits a quartering of the <g>Clare</g> and <g>Bigod</g> shields. In others, the arms are interspersed with various devices, or single figures, such as griffons, spread eagles, roses, fleurs-de-lis, &c., of common heraldic usage, but not individually applied. It appears that in some instances they formed a kind of tesselated pavement, the middle representing a maze, or labyrinth, about two feet in diameter, so artfully contrived that a man, following all the intricate meanders of its volutes, could not travel less than a mile before he got from one end to the other. The tiles are baked almost to vitrifaction, and wonderfully resist damp and wear.[172] Actual tesselated pavements once existed. A manuscript Anglo-Saxon Glossary, cited by Junius, says--“Of this kind of work, mosaic in small dies, little is used in England. Howbeit, I have seen of it a specimen upon church floors, before altars--as before the high altar at Westminster--though it be but gross.”[173]
<g>Abbey Wire-works.</g>--Among the objects of local industry in Tinterne, to which the stranger’s attention is usually directed, the Abbey Wire-works are the most interesting. “These,” to quote the words of the late Mr. Thomas, “as well as the stately pile in their vicinity, amongst whose silent recesses the tourist has so often and fondly trodden, are also the dominions of Art. But how widely different is the scene! Here she is met with in her busy laboratory, controlling and directing the energies of mankind, and seizing upon the very subjects of nature--the gurgling water and the lambent flame--to make them tributaries to her ambitious designs; whilst there, in the precincts of that ruined fane, she is beheld indolently reclining in the flowery lap of her indulgent rival--just as we have seen the wasted form of a lovely maiden pillowed on the bosom of her elder sister, and gently languishing through the departing hours of her insidious disease.”
<g>It</g> was in the seventeenth century, during the times of the Stuart dynasty, that certain Swedish and German artisans, flying from continental tyranny, were induced to seek an asylum within the pale of the British constitution, and introduce into their adopted country the art of forging wire. They were received with open arms; locations were assigned them, denominated _Seats_; and a privilege of a vote in parliamentary elections, with an exemption from taxes, were constituted as part of the favours which our discerning government thought proper to confer. Of these seats <g>Tinterne</g> was one from the very first immigration; and here many of the descendants of the original settlers are still employed in the handicraft of their forefathers. Of the methods used in the manufacture of iron-wire before the introduction of improved machinery, tradition has preserved the following outline:--