MISSING 150 YEARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 418, 28 July 1928, Page 4

MISSING 150 YEARS

CHURCH PLATE RESTORED Of* ELIZABETHAN ORIGIN Missing for 150 years, a cup and paten forming part of the Communion plate in use in Shelland Church, Suffolk, in the sixteenth century, has just been returned to tlie church. The cup is four inches high. It has a baluster stem, and weighs 3oz 16dwt. Marks include the leopard’s head crowned, the lion passant, and the date letter G. The paten has the sexfoil stamp generally denoting Elizabethan origin. The Rev. H. Copinger-Hill, chaplain of the church, said the cup and paten had been examined by experts, who dated them 1588. “Their disappearance is easily accounted for,” said Mr. Hill. “In 1770 Richard and Elizabeth Ray, owners of property around Shelland, celebrated the birth of a daughter by presenting Shelland Church with a Communion set, one of the finest in the country. The original set then seemed to have found a resting-place in the Ray’s household, and when the daughter married and left the parish, the cup and paten were taken away. I cannot say where they have been all these years, but when I wrote to the owner he presented them to me with a very graceful letter.” Shelland Church, reputed to be the quaintest in the country, has a barrel organ to lead its music.