Hall marks on gold & silver plate

INTRODUCTION. Iv
minating in a weather-vane. Outside there is a little ladder from
the base to the first story, where it joins a little winding staircase
leading to the gallery.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries small open salts,
standing on feet, and often being simply a cage or frame to contain
a small glass vessel holding the salt, came into use.
Spoons.
" Therfore behoveth him a fid long spone
That shot ete with a fend!*
^Chaucer, " The Squiere's Tale,"
1. 10,916.
Some elegant specimens of Anglo-Saxon spoons have been found in
different parts of England. Two of these are figured in " Archaeo-
logia."*
The first made of silver jewelled with garnets, was found
at Chatham, and is an interesting example; the second was found
at Desborough, Co. Northampton, and is also probably Anglo-
Saxon; the bowl is large and oval, the stem plain, tied in at intervals
by small bands ; the handle also is oval and flat, and ornamented
v/ith an incised pattern.
Silver spoons appear to be first mentioned in the will of Martin
de S. Cross in 1259,! and from that time they are frequently referred
to in medieeval wills.
One of the most beautiful spoons now in existence is that known
as the Coronation spoon. Although the date of this cannot be
accurately determined, it is supposed
to be of the twelfth or thir-
teenth century. It is made of silver gilt, with four pearls on the
lower part of the handle ; the bowl is elegantly ornamented with an
engraved arabesque pattern, and the handle also is well moulded.*
This spoon is used to hold the oil for anointing the sovereign at the
Coronation, and is now kept with the regalia in the Tower of
London.
A very early domestic silver spoon, of slender make, with figshaped
bowl, " "
six-sided stele," and gilt
dyamond poynte," is
mentioned by Mr. C. J. Jackson.H In the bowl is stamped the
leopard's head, uncrowned, but surrounded by a circle of dots ; and
the spoon probably belongs to the early part of the fourteenth
century.
Spoons terminating with the head and shoulders of the Virgin
Mary are known as " Maidenhead spoons," and such spoons are
recorded in an inventory of Durham Priory made in I446; and
several good examples of these spoons are still in existence.
* Vol. LIII, pp. 116, 117.
t " Wills and Inventories " (Surtees Society, 2), i, 9.
t " Archseologia," Vol. LIII, p. 118.
II Ibid., Vol. LIII, p. 130.
"
Wills and Inventories
"
(Surtees Society, 2), i, 91.