THIMBLE

Description

Silver thimble, the dome made separately and soldered into place. The lower part of the thimble is decorated with a raised cast band of scrollwork, the final scroll of which encircles the capital letters TG (maker's mark). A cast blank rectangular panel between the stop and start of the scrollwork band has been engraved by hand with the initials E I in seriffed capitals. Below this a cast band bearing the legend LIVD IN LOVE in raised seriffed Roman capitals, between small triple pellets.

Maximum height 19.4mm; external diameter 16.5mm; thickness 0.5mm; weight 5.67g.

The object has not undergone any cleaning or conservation, and further information may result from its eventual treatment.

Metal Content

To judge from its colour and weight and visual comparison with silver brooches and other items in the collections of the Department of Archaeology & Numismatics, the alloy is well in excess of 10% silver.

Summary and conclusions

The thimble can be dated to the 17th century on the basis of style, spelling and the form of the seriffed capital letters, a form popular in the 1650s. EI refers to the owner's initials. Decorative ribbon-work slightly different from this example and incised seriffed lettering can be found on thimbles dated to the 17th century from Hitchin, Hertfordshire (Treasure Annual Report 2004, no. 331) and Brailes, Warwickshire (Treasure Annual Report 2005-6, no. 833). Other silver thimbles from Wales include a late 17th-century example found at Llanddewi, Gower in 2002 (TAR 2003, no. 424), and one bearing the legend KEPE+PROMIS+ found at Carew, Pembrokeshire (TAR 2008, cat. no. 432). The raised legend and decoration on the sides of the Llay Community thimble have been cast.

Dora Thornton has noted that silver thimbles, increasingly used by nobility and gentry, were often donated by women on the Parliamentary side to be melted down during the Civil War (Treasure Annual Report 2005-6, 145). Thimbles of this date, although imported from Holland into England in large numbers (145,000 in one year), are now rare. On the basis of the spelling, letter form and decoration the thimble is likely to be post-Civil War period, either late seventeenth century or early eighteenth century. Similar incised ownership initials (added post-manufacture) occur on a thimble attributed to c. 1640-1710 from Hardwick, Stroud, Gloucestershire (GLO-9DCF28), and one from Taynton, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, attributed to the early eighteenth century on stylistic ground, with the suggestion that it could date to the first decade (GLO-48C9D7).