CANDLE HOLDER

An incomplete, Medieval, cast, copper-alloy, socketed tripod candlestick. It has a turned, broad, saucer-shaped base, 96mm in diameter, with two pairs of concentric grooves and a raised edge. The base is supported by three legs, two with a flaring, trapezoidal foot. The foot from the third leg is missing and the base is broken into three pieces with some missing fragments. The stem of the candlestick originally issued from the centre of the base but was found as three seperate pieces, detached from the base. The stem tapers from a wide base, 17.3mm in diameter, up to 9mm, where it meets a hexagonally-shaped collar which, in turn, supports the two flat sides of an open socket that is surmounted by a tapering, hexagonal collar. There is a deep indentation in one edge of the collar. At the junction of the sides and the terminal collar, are the remains of two projections. The stem and socket are 147mm in length. The socket has an internal diameter of 15mm tapering down to 10mm.

This candlestick is almost identical to one described in Egan, "The Medieval Household", pages 149-150, fig. 117, no. 426, and is comparable to two, similar sticks found in French hoards dated to the 14th century. Egan suggests, therefore, that these candlesticks were imported from the continent. Very few examples of this type are known as UK finds but compare NMS-4150F7 and DEV-4115C5.