Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 1.djvu/215

 ASSISTED BY NOTES CONTRIBUTED BY M. SHURLOCK, ESQ., LOCAL HONORARY SECRETARY FOR CHERTSEY.

the course of the excavations undertaken by the present owner of the site of Chertsey Abbey, the workmen met with portions of ornamental encaustic tiles, the body being of red or black clay, varying in tone in different examples, and the relief formed by a buff-coloured clay burnt into a depressed cavity. Upon arriving at about the same level as the lowest fair masonry of the exterior, and in the part of the building supposed, in the plan attached to the preceding Paper, to have formed the south transept of the church, a considerable quantity of these fragments was found, in a loose and confused mass resting on a stratum of concrete, though it was not possible to say whether they had ever been bedded upon it. Pains had apparently been taken to destroy the designs; unless we prefer the conclusion that, upon the destruction of the pavement or other work of which these fragments were the elements, the unbroken tiles, and those that could be refitted, were carefully selected and removed, and the obviously useless portions only left behind. The former notion seems, in great part, negatived by the absolute impos-