THIMBLE

A complete but squashed, cracked and bent white metal thimble of Post-Medieval date. It is assumed to be made of silver, however XRF analysis has not been carried out to date.

The thimble has possibly been formed in one-piece, no obvious seams are visible. However, a subtle line between the top and sides of the thimble could equally be the resulting fine crack caused by the artefact having been squashed or a well formed seam. Holes are present over this subtle feature but this could have been an attempt to further disguise a join.

The artefact weighs 2.43g. In its current condition it has a maximum height of 20.1mm, maximum width of 18.3mm and maximum thickness of 8.1mm. The metal has a thickness of 0.3mm at the rim, which does not appear to have been turned over.

The lower, approximately half, walls of the thimble are covered with a horizontal decorative panel. This panel is bordered above and below by a parallel set of thin groove-ridge-groove design. Due to the squashed condition of the artefact and the presence of dried mud within the thimble only a small area of the internal surface is visble. While it might be expected that this design may have been formed by punch-stamping the internal surface of the wall (forming the ridge and thus leaving the metal to either side to appear from the opposite surface to be the grooves) visual inspection of internal side of the wall contradicts this. The visible area of the internal surface of the artefact appears to be completely smooth and without any trace of decoration. This indicates that the thimble's decoration was not formed with use of a machine-punch. The base panel of decoration, between the two horizontal borders is a geometric pattern of four repeated designs. These four designs are strapwork visually very similar to the 'Greek Key Pattern'. Instead of having been outlined with grooves this strapwork is outlined by double rows of tiny closely set punch-stamped indents. These indented marks are arranged in pairs creating the appearance of ridge between each row. Use of magnification seems to show that these indents are circular in shape. A fifth, approximately equal sized zone is blank, presumably to allow the engraving of initials or a short message. 

The holes, on the upper walls and top, seem to be equally spaced and arranged in even concentric circles around the circumference of the thimble, though the damaged state of the artefact makes this difficult to state with complete certainty. The arc of the convexly domed top was probably relatively low veering to flat rather than pronouncedly domed.

The general form suggests that this thimble probably dates from the mid 17th to 18th centuries AD. However, the Greek Key Pattern design is used on a thimble dated to the mid 18th to mid 19th century AD (see Read, B. 2018). Overall "there isn't enough evidence, on balance, to" confirm that it predates 1720. Therefore the Treasure Registrar has advised that the artefact recorded in the PAS record does not need to be reported as Treasure under the Treasure Act 1996 (Pers. Comm. by email 02/03/2020 @15:04).

See https://finds.org.uk/counties/findsrecordingguides/textile-equipment/