Glazed floor tile from excavations by Winchester Museums Service Archaeology Section at the site of Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire in 1995.

Floor tile

Medieval, 13th-14th century

Found by Winchester Museums Archaeology Section at the Hyde Abbey Community Excavation, Winchester, Hampshire in 1995

A nearly complete glazed inlaid floor tile, only traces of the glaze now remain. There are four key holes, or scooped out circular depressions on the back of this tile, which helped secure the tile to the mortar bed. This tile is of a type made at Otterbourne, near Winchester by William Tyelere in about 1396. The few surviving tiles from Hyde Abbey give us an idea of how the abbey buildings were decorated during the later Middle Ages.