Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 1.djvu/216

 sibility of adjusting the broken parts; for whilst the same portions of the design occurred repeatedly, others were altogether wanting; or where the various parts of a design could be traced, they had to be deduced from fragments, not of one, but of many different tiles, the remaining portions of which could not be found.

The forms of the tiles vary, but are mostly square or circular, or combinations of these two figures; but of the designs, by far the greater part are circular, consisting of medallions occupying a single rectangular or round tile, or else four tiles, constituting together the square or circular form. These larger circles have apparently been surrounded by inscriptions, portions of many of which still remain. The centres are mostly figures or groups, such as, a harper in a boat on the water, grotesques, the signs of the zodiac, a king or ecclesiastic seated and holding a sceptre or crozier, warriors or knights on horse or on foot, and the like; and the spandrils or spaces between these circles are filled with foliage and arabesques of elaborate and elegant design. The drawing is remarkably spirited, the proportions and outlines good, and considerable skill manifested in giving the effect of light and shade.

One portion of the tiles appear designed to stand vertically, and probably formed a reredos or other wall ornament; they represent a series of niches flanked by panelled buttresses and crocketed pinnacles, surmounted by foliated canopies, in which the ogee arch occurs. The design of each niche occupies one tile in width and four in height; one is filled by an archbishop, another by a queen with a sceptre in her right, and a squirrel in her left hand, and the third by a king, having in his right hand an oak or olive branch, and a figure under his feet whom he seems to be crushing to the earth;